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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 












THE FOUNDATIONS. 



The Foundations: 



A SEEIES OF LECTUEES 



ON 



THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 



JOHN MONRO GIBSON, D.D., 

AUTHOR OF "THE AGES BEFORE MOSES.' 



Z(*22. 



CHICAGO: 
JANSEN, McCLURG & COMPANY. 

1880 r 

<7T 






COPYRIGHT. 

JANSEN, McCLURG & COMPANY. 

A. D. 1880. 



STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED 



THE CHICAGO LEGAL NEWS COMPANY. 



PREFACE. 



The author of these Lectures is well aware that 
" of making many books " on the Evidences of Chris- 
tianity " there is no end ; " but, neither does he see why 
there should be, until there is an end of infidelity. 
The present brief series makes no pretensions to fulness 
of treatment, but it is hoped that its general method 
and plan, which are believed to be new; its attempt to 
deal with phases of unbelief which are specially promi- 
nent at the present time ; and, above all, its brevity, 
may secure it a field of usefulness, and realize, in some 
measure, the expectations of those who have urged its 
publication. 

Chicago, February, 1880. 



CONTENTS. 



Jnttoimctcrg. 



LECTURE PAGE 

L Clearing the Ground 11 

dftrst lati: €J)e 3Sefc 3&ocft, 

GOD IS. 

II. The Witness Within . . . . 29 

III. The Witness Without 43 

Second $att: W$t ©fjteJ (Hornet: Stone, 

GOD IN CHRIST, 

IV. Revelation of God in a Human Life. 61 
V. Credentials of the Christ 74 

VI. Miracles of the Gospel 88 

VII. The Resurrection 104 



CONTENTS. 



Cine* Watt: Ci)e OTompWrtr jFomrtrattcm, 

GOD IN CHRIST MADE KNOWN BY THE 
SPIRIT. 

VIII. Revelation by the Spirit 123 

IX. The Sixty- six Books 136 

X. The One Book 154 

(RontmitiQ Qonttast: 

THE TWO STRONGHOLDS. 

XI. The Stronghold of Unbelief : A 

Dogma 273 

XII. The Stronghold of Faith : The 

Christ of History 189 



INTRODUCTORY. 



THE FOUNDATIONS. 



LECTUKE I. 

CLEARING THE GROUND. 

Christianity is its own best evidence. Give us 
more and more of real Christianity, and we shall 
need less and less of its evidences. " Ye are my 
witnesses," says Christ to His disciples. One truly 
Christian life will do more to prove* the divine origin 
of Christianity than many lectures. Hence, it is of 
much greater importance to develop Christian char- 
acter than to exhibit Christian evidences. 

But it is not right to neglect the other altogether. 
Christianity is not merely a life, the beauty and 
goodness of which ought to be made apparent by 
living specimens. It is a history and a doctrine, 
the truth of which ought to be made apparent, as in 
the case of any history or any doctrine. It carries 
with it a claim on the allegiance of all mankind, 

(ii) 



12 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

which claim ought by all means to be amply justi- 
fied. Hence the importance of what are called the 
evidences of Christianity. 

The faith which the Bible claims is not blind 
faith, but intelligent faith. "We are called upon to 
prove all things, and to be ready always to give to 
every man that asketh us a "reason of the hope that 
is in us," and we cannot do this — the first not at all, 
the other not thoroughly — without at least a gen- 
eral knowledge of the foundations of our faith. 

In these times especially, it is important that this 
subject should be widely known. In former times 
infidelity for the most part took the shape of simple 
indifference and cold neglect. Now it takes the 
position of open hostility, and we ought to be ready 
to meet it. Questions concerning the fundamentals 
of religion are no longer confined to a few infidel 
writers on the one side and a corresponding 
number of theologians on the other. They are dis- 
cussed throughout the whole compass of our litera- 
ture. We find such discussions in every issue of 
all the first-class reviews, and in almost every issue 
of the first-class newspapers. 

If this be so, why add to the Babel of words? 
Is not the subject quite enough discussed already? 
But here is the difficulty. Infidel writers have the 
very easy task of presenting objections. Easy for 



CLEARING THE GROUND. 13 

two reasons. First, an objection may be presented 
in a sentence or two; the answer to it may re- 
quire a column or a page. It will be at once seen 
what enormous advantage this gives in a news- 
paper controversy to the anti-Christian side. But 
besides this, an objection appeals to ignorance; the 
answer to it must be founded on knowledge. How 
much knowledge does it require to see the point of 
such objections as those which Colonel Ingersoll 
brings against religious truth ? Are not the most ig- 
norant people the most apt to accept his travesties 
as genuine arguments ? On the other hand, it requires 
some familiarity with linguistic and literary and 
historical, and even with theological studies, to be 
able fairly to appreciate the answers to such objec- 
tions even as these. 

The evidences of Christianity are cumulative. 
They consist of a vast mass, all converging to one 
point, viz., the divine origin of Christianity. It is 
obvious then that it requires a quite extensive 
knowledge to be able to appreciate the evidence in 
its fulness and completeness. And it requires a 
proportionate knowledge to be able to appreciate a 
proportionate amount. You can easily see, then, what 
an easy task an objector has with one who is almost 
ignorant of the subject in its entirety. You are 
standing by the side of a great river. A dark mist 



14 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

is hanging over it, so that you cannot see the direc- 
tion in which it is flowing. Close beside you, near 
enough to see by peering down into it, your atten- 
tion is called to a little stream flowing north. So 
" the river flows north," you are told. " Yes, I 
see it does." Tet all the while the majestic river 
is flowing south, and that is only a little eddy. But 
before you can be convinced that its course is really 
southward, it will be necessary that the mist be 
raised from a large part of the stream. If the mist 
had not been there, if the broad expanse of the 
stream had been full in your view, it would have 
been impossible to lead you astray by pointing to 
the little eddy. And so it is with many to whose 
minds the little eddies of apparent contradiction are 
so easily presented. If they only saw the vast stream 
of truth flowing majestically and mightily on, they 
would not be disturbed by these little counter-cur- 
rents. But they do not ; and the reason why they do 
not is simply because they have never made them- 
selves acquainted with the evidences. The subject 
is too large ever to be presented at all comprehens- 
ively even in the reviews, far less in the newspapers ; 
and as for books on the subject, few have the time, 
even if they had the inclination, to read them. 

The object of this course of lectures is to present, 
in as brief and comprehensive a form as possible, a 



CLEARING THE GROUND. 15 

general view of this extensive subject, so as to sup- 
ply for those who may need it, at least a framework on 
which knowledge derived from subsequent reading 
and reflection may be worked in ; and so as to show 
that, though there are many questions about Chris- 
tianity which it is hard, and some of which it may 
be impossible, to answer, there are so many, many 
things to be said in its favor that any reasonable 
man who has them in view may " know the cer- 
tainty" "of those things which are most surely be- 
lieved among us." 

All that I propose to do at present is to clear the 
ground for the foundations, by offering some pre- 
liminary considerations. Some of these have been 
slightly referred to in what has already been said; 
but they are of sufficient importance to justify an 
articulate and distinct statement. 

1. The subject does not admit of mathematical 
demonstration. Is this an acknowledgment of 
weakness, to begin with? By no means. Math- 
ematical demonstration is out of the question in 
all departments of real knowledge, i. e., our know- 
ledge of persons and things. Its form is this : " Sup- 
posing this to be so and so, then that will necessarily 
follow." But it never can say: "This or that is so 
and so." Every student of mathematics knows that 
it is of no great consequence whether he draw his 



16 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

figure well or ill. His right-angled triangle may be 
any number of degrees off the square, and his 
straight lines may be very shaky and crooked. No 
matter, the demonstration comes out all the same. 
Why? Because he is not demonstrating anything 
about the figure actually before him, or any figure 
that he knows to exist, but about a figure in his 
mind constructed from a definition that has been 
laid down in the beginning. All that he proves 
is: " Suppose the figure to be so and so, then so 
and so will follow." "When we have the liberty to 
make our own premises, then of course we may 
draw our conclusions with mathematical certainty; 
but in dealing with realities we cannot make our 
own premises; we must accept the facts as we 
find them, and when we reach certainty it can- 
not be mathematical, but what is called moral 
certainty. Now the distinction between mathe- 
matical and moral certainty lies here: mathemat- 
ical certainty is the result of a single line of evi- 
dence, of such a nature as to be irresistible to 
any mind capable of following it. Moral certainty 
is the result of a number of converging lines of evi- 
dence, none of which may be absolutely convincing 
in itself, but which taken together claim the belief of 
reasonable men, and form a sufficient basis for duty. 
Now, it is of great importance to remember that it 



CLEARING THE GROUND. 17 

is on moral and not on mathematical certainty that 
all our substantial beliefs are founded. It is not 
possible to demonstrate gravitation, yet we surely 
believe it. It is not possible to demonstrate that 
the sun will rise to-morrow, yet we surely expect it. 
It is not possible to demonstrate that it is wrong to 
steal, yet we do not scruple to punish the man that 
does it. All that we ask in other departments of 
thought and action is reasonable grounds for our 
faith ; and why should we ask more in religion ? Let 
us then, by all means, look for the converging lines 
of moral demonstration, and not for any single line 
of mathematical demonstration. 

2. Our second consideration is the consequence 
of the first. It is this : That we are by no means 
bound to answer all the difficulties that may be pre- 
sented as we travel along the different lines of proof. 
In a mathematical demonstration there are no diffi- 
culties and no room for objections. "Why ? Because 
the whole question lies within such easy compass. 
Dealing, as the demonstration does, not with real 
things, but only with certain supposed cases origin- 
ating in the mind itself, we are easily masters of the 
whole field. We have the beginning, middle and 
end of it within the compass of our own minds. 
But as soon as we pass out of our own minds and 
deal with real things, as in science, the case is en- 
2 



18 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

tirely altered, as is apparent from the fact that, 
while all good mathematicians agree, the best of 
doctors may differ ; and what is true of the doc- 
tors is true of all scientific men, as well as theolog- 
ians. Now, the field which is covered by the Chris- 
tian religion is as broad as the universe and as long 
as eternity, for God, whom it reveals, is the Crea- 
tor of all worlds, and His purposes, which it pro- 
fesses in part to unfold, stretch far beyond the lim- 
its of passing time. Rather a wide scope for objec- 
tions, you see. And it would be passing strange if 
even a feeble mind could not gather a sufficiently 
formidable array. To answer all possible objections 
would require omniscience. Let us never, there- 
fore be so foolish as to undertake to solve all diffi- 
culties. Never let what you do not know disturb 
what you do know. Enough to have sufficient pos- 
itive evidence for believing what we do believe, 
without our troubling ourselves about answering 
all the difficulties which lie along the line of our be- 
lief. It must surely be a great mistake to allow an 
appeal to our ignorance to have greater weight than 
an appeal to our intelligence. Let us, then, not be 
disturbed by difficulties, so long as our positive 
proof is sufficiently strong. 

3. Be careful to distinguish between links and 
strands of evidence, and do not allow our strands 



CLEARING THE GROUND. 19 

to be treated as if tliey were mere links. The 
strength of a chain is the strength of its weakest 
link. But the strength of a rope is not the strength 
of its weakest strand. It is the united strength of 
all of them. Here is a chain -cable warranted to 
hold an ocean steamship. "Will it hold? Eight in 
the middle of it is a weak link that would not bear 
the strain of a single ton. No matter how strong 
the other links may be, it is plain that that ca- 
ble will not hold. Here again is a huge rope. 
"Will it hold? Suppose you take one of the many 
fibres of which it is wrought and show it will not 
bear the strain of one pound weight. Does that 
prove the rope will not hold? By no means. It de- 
pends on how many such fibres are wrought together 
to make the one rope. Now, if you consider for 
a moment, you will see how unfair it would be, in 
order to show that the rope would not hold, to take 
each of its pieces separately, and say: There is 
something in this strand, but not sufficient to bear 
the strain, so it must be set aside: and so to go on 
from strand to strand until the entire rope was con- 
demned. But that is just the way that most infi- 
del writers deal with the evidences of Christianity. 
There are very many Hues of proof. They take up 
each line by itself, and while they cannot but admit 
that there is some force in it, they say (and pos- 



20 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

sibly they may be right in saying it sometimes) 
that there is not force enough to bear the strain of 
the mighty claim that Christianity makes on our 
faith and allegiance. And what then? Why, they 
set it aside altogether, and, in dealing afterwards 
with the other lines of evidence, they allow it no 
force at all. Is not that glaringly unjust ? Remem- 
ber I make no charge here, or anywhere else through- 
out these lectures, of intentional dishonesty. There 
are many who deal unfairly in their arguments who 
are perfectly honest in their intent. But the unfair- 
ness is none the less real on that account. 

The illustration of the rope is good enough so far 
as it goes, but it does not go far enough, as a 
moment's thought will show. A rope of say three 
equal strands has three times the strength of each of 
them. But has a three-fold line of evidence just 
three times the strength of each line? No; it has 
immeasurably more. Take the simple case of in- 
dependent witnesses. The testimony of one man 
gives a certain degree of probability. Does the 
testimony of a second quite independent witness 
only double the probability? No; it indefinitely in- 
creases it. And if a third independent witness should 
testify to the same fact, we should in all ordinary 
cases accept it as conclusive. Now consider whether 
it would be fair to say, " The first man may be mis- 



CLEARING THE GROUND. 21 

taken, or may be untruthful, so you cannot accept 
his statement as settling the matter, and accordingly 
he must be set aside;" and then, having disposed 
of the second and third in precisely the same way, 
to sum up by saying: " I have proved that not 
one of all the three witnesses is conclusive, so your 
case is dismissed." Is there a lawyer in all the land 
that w r ould justify such treatment of evidence? Yet 
it is done all the time in dealing with the many 
independent lines of Christian evidence; and we 
must not allow it. 

4. "Where the links in the evidence are success- 
ive, be sure to take them in the right order. A 
pyramid is the most stable of all structures ; but 
even a pyramid will not stand upon its apex. The 
most skilful builder cannot build a house by be- 
ginning at the second story. Now, it is true that 
those who wait upon the Lord may "mount up 
with wings as eagles," and so there are multitudes 
of Christians who have attained to the very heights 
of Christian experience without climbing up the 
stairway of the Christian evidences. But when we 
wish to exhibit the solidity of the Christian temple, 
we must begin at the foundation and go up by 
plain and strong steps. You will find persons that 
are foolish enough to stake the entire system of 
Christianity on the interpretation of some partic- 



22 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

ular text of Scripture. "When some old idea that 
has long been attached to it has been exploded, 
they begin to tremble as if the very foundations 
were giving way. The foundation of their faith 
was the verbal inspiration of the entire Bible, from 
the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelation, 
so that a doubt attaching to a sentence or even a 
single word is sufficient to fill them with alarm. 
Now it is quite evident that this is not a desirable 
position for any one to hold. I here pronounce no 
opinion on the question of the nature or degree of 
inspiration. I only object to this or any theory of 
inspiration being made the foundation on which 
the whole structure of Christianity is supposed to 
rest, the ultimate fact beyond which we cannot go. 
There are three main stages in the inquiry before 
us. There is, first, the being of God ; second, the 
revelation of God in Christ ; and last, the record 
of that revelation by the Holy Spirit in the sacred 
Scriptures. Now, it is true that, in a certain sense, 
the last is first and the first last. We open the 
Scriptures to learn of Christ, and we study Christ 
to know God. The Holy Spirit is the way to 
the Son, and the Son is the way to the Father. 
"Through Him we all have access by one Spirit to 
the Father.' 3 But in building the foundations, it 
will not do to invert the order. The existence of 



CLEARING THE GROUND. 23 

God must be a settled matter before you raise the 
question whether He revealed Himself in Christ. 
And so, too, we must find some evidence that 
Christ was what He claimed to be, before we can 
be assured of the certain truth of what He said 
about the Holy Spirit and the sacred Scriptures. 

The true order then is God, Christ, the Bible. 
And that is the order we propose to follow in these 
lectures. It will be understood from what we have 
said concerning the vast range of the subject, that 
we have no idea of being able to present it in 
its completeness. All we can do is to give an 
indication of the kind of argument by which the 
truth of Christianity is made apparent to those who 
honestly and earnestly inquire into it. We shall 
first show some of the reasons for believing that 
God exists. At this stage of the inquiry the Bible 
will not be used as evidence at all. We shall next 
show some of the reasons for believing that God has 
revealed Himself in His Son Christ Jesus. At this 
stage of the inquiry, the books, which when bound 
together are called the Bible, will be used, but sim- 
ply as books by human authors, and dealt with ac- 
cording to the laws of evidence. We shall not beg 
the question of their inspiration. We shall then 
show some of the reasons for believing that we have 
a record of this revelation and of all that it is nee- 



24 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

essary for us to know in regard to the preparations 
for it and results of it, a record which is not 
only generally correct, but on which we can rely 
because the men to whom we are indebted for it 
spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. Af- 
ter honestly and candidly pursuing such a line of 
inquiry as this, we believe a candid mind should 
have no difficulty in reaching an intelligent convic- 
tion that the Scriptures of the Old and New Tes- 
taments are really " given by inspiration of God 
and are profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for cor- 
rection, for instruction in righteousness;" and when 
we reach this point, the evidences of Christianity 
have fully served their end. The foundations firmly 
laid, we are ready to enter the temple and worship. 

.Remember, however, in conclusion, that while it 
is very desirable to be acquainted with the evi- 
dences of Christianity, both in order to prove all 
things for ourselves that we may " hold fast that 
which is good," and also that we may be able to 
"give to every man a reason for the hope that is in 
us," it is not necessary to know them in order to 
know Christ and be assured of His salvation. There 
is the sure and easy path of personal experience, 
which is open to all. It may take a learned man to 
set forth the reasons why bread is good, but a hun- 
gry man need not wait till the lecture is done before 



CLEARING THE GBOUND. 25 

he tries it. " O taste and see that God is good." 
And yet there is one thing more, the unspeak- 
able importance of the spirit in which you approach 
this subject, whether by way of the evidences or 
by the way of personal trial. You must come in 
the spirit of " meekness and fear. 55 First, meek- 
ness. If yon are vain in your own conceit, all will 
be vain. The gate of the kingdom is humility. 
And then, fear. It must be in no light and trifling 
spirit that you come. It is for your life. Come, 
then, in meekness and fear. Seek humbly and 
earnestly, and you will not seek in vain. 



FIRST PART. 



THE BED ROCK, 



LECTUKE II. 



THE WITNESS WITHIN. 



The Being of God is the underlying foundation 
of all religion. "We propose, accordingly, to begin 
by giving some of the many reasons for believing 
that God is. This is, at present, the thick of the 
fight between the believer and the unbeliever. In 
former times, among English-speaking people, the 
alternative was Deism or Christianity. Infidelity 
meant the rejection of Christ, while the belief in 
God was supposed still to remain, and to be all- 
sufficient for religious purposes. But the deistic 
position is now practically abandoned. It is aban- 
doned entirely by the leaders, and, though a good 
many of the rank and file of infidelity hold the old 
position still, they hold it in a very vague kind of 
way, and make no attempt worth speaking of to 
defend it. The great question is not now as be- 
tween God in Christ and God out of Christ, God in 
the world and God out of the world, but between 
God and no God; or to put it more accurately, be- 

(29) 



30 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

tween those who say that the heavens and the earth, 
and all that are in them declare the glory of God, 
and those who leave it an entirely open question 
whether there be a God or not. Hence the special 
importance, in these times, of this part of the argu- 
ment. 

Remember at the outset that the claim to know 
God does not mean to comprehend Him. We do 
not even comprehend one another. We know one 
another, and even ourselves, only in part. But, 
though I may know you only very partially, that 
is no reason for doubting that I know your exist- 
ence, and something about you besides. You see 
how careful the Apostle is in this regard. He says, 
"That which maybe known of God, is manifest," 
implying that there is very much we may not 
know; but that casts no discredit whatever on the 
little we do know. 

But, though our means of knowing God are nec- 
essarily limited, yet the subject is so extensive that 
it would be presumptuous to attempt, after any 
fashion, anything like a complete presentation of 
it. All we can hope to do is to indicate the main 
lines of evidence, and give some idea of the manner 
in which each of them contributes to the conclu- 
sion, which all of them taken together render 
abundantly certain. 



THE WITNESS WITHIN. 31 

The knowledge of God is borne in upon us on 
every side of our many-sided nature. We are bound 
to the great Author of our being by a manifold cord 
which, if carefully analyzed, would be found to 
consist of very many strands. But as our limits 
forbid any attempt at minute analysis, we propose 
to consider the cable as consisting of four great 
strands. Whether or not there be any suggestive- 
ness in the four-fold distribution of the powers with 
which we are called upon to worship God, " Thou 
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and 
with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and 
with all thy mind," we shall not, I think, go far 
astray, if we say that in man's complex nature we 
can distinguish intellect, conscience, heart, and soul 
(the meaning of the dubious word " soul" to be after- 
ward explained). Each one of these has its own 
witness to the being of God. 

ISTow, before we examine the witnesses, let us see 
if we know anything as to their truthfulness. If 
the testimony be clear, can we accept it as true? 
It seems to me that the only possible answer is, 
that we must. If our very nature is a lie, it is of no 
use to inquire after truth on any subject whatever. 
We must then accept as trustworthy the faculties 
with which we find ourselves endowed, and which are 
the only means we have of ascertaining truth. And 



32 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

be it remembered this applies to them all alike. It is 
evidently irrational to suppose that we may dis- 
credit one part of our nature and be quite sure of 
another. Of course every part of our nature is liable 
to error. But this error to which we are liable can- 
not be supposed to come from our original constitu- 
tion, else it would be impossible ever to recognize 
it as error, and equally impossible to correct it. 
AVe may err through ignorance, or through careless- 
ness, or through weakness; but we cannot suppose 
that the source of the error can lie in the faculty 
itself, for to suppose this would be to render knowl- 
edge on any subject utterly uncertain. This is 
generally admitted so far as the intellect is con- 
cerned. Notwithstanding the many errors of think- 
ing into which all men are apt to fall, hardly any 
ever suppose that the laws of thinking are a delu- 
sion and a snare. We must accept as true, that 
which the intellect decides to be true, inasmuch as 
there are no other possible means of deciding it. 
But the very same principle applies to the decisions 
of the conscience and of the heart. There are many 
of those who have absolute confidence in the human 
intellect, who have little faith in the conscience, and 
none in the heart. But is it not as plain as day, 
that if we are so constituted that our conscience will 
lie to us, it is just as likely that our intellect will 



THE WITNESS WITHIN. 33 

do the same? If the love which we find in our 
hearts be a delusion and a snare, why may not the 
laws of logic, which we find in our mental constitu- 
tion, be equally a delusion and a snare? The man. 
who will meditate a lie will look a lie; and if he 
can look a lie he may also act a lie; and if he can 
act a lie you cannot trust him not to tell a lie. If 
a man is a liar at all, you cannot trust him in any- 
thing. And so is it with our faculties. We must 
trust them all, or we cannot put confidence in any 
of them. 

"We shall begin, with the witness of the heart. 
Here we find deep-rooted in our nature a sense of 
dependence on a Superior Being, and certain affec- 
tional longings and aspirations reaching out toward 
Him. Augustine but expressed the sentiment of 
humanity, except in so far as it has been overlaid 
by sin or starved by neglect, when he said: " Thou 
hast made the heart for Thyself, and it is ever rest- 
less until it finds its rest in Thee." As a rule, 
our infidel friends are not disposed to contradict us 
here. They say: "All right; that is just where 
religion belongs ; it is a matter of sentiment, of 
emotion." And by saying this they think they 
have cast some doubt upon its reality. How, it is 
true that our passing sentiments and emotions can 
never be a standard of reality; but to say that a 
3 



31 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

deep-seated abiding sentiment of the human heart 
is a falsehood, is to impeach our entire nature, and 
make it impossible to trust any part of it. What 
if this deep-rooted sense of relation to a Superior 
Being be, as it is sometimes called, a mere instinct; 
is that any reason why we are to suppose it a lie? 
Is it a common thing for instincts to lie? Do you 
know of a single case in which instinct in the 
animal kingdom has been proved to be a lie? Then 
what good ground have you for supposing that " the 
instinct of prayer," if it be only an instinct, is a 
lie? 

There have been those who have felt the power 
of this witness to be so great that they considered 
it not only sufficient to standalone without support 
from any other, but even against what seemed the 
contradiction of all the others. This is the key-note 
of a large part of Tennyson's " In ]\Iemoriam," as, 
for example, in this passage: 

11 If e'er, when Faith had fallen asleep, 
I heard a voice, '. Believe no more, * 
And heard an ever-breaking shore 
That tumbled in the Godless deep ; 

A warmth within the breast would melt 

The freezing reason's colder part; 

And, like a man in wrath, the heart 
Stood up and answered, ' I have felt.' " 



THE WITNESS WITHIN. 35 

And yet it is quite common for infidel writers to 
treat the witness of the heart as not only of no 
force at all, but as rather tending to discredit the 
reality of that which it attests! Whether that be 
a rational mode of procedure I am quite willing to 
to leave to your good judgment. I have faith, you 
see, in the trustworthiness of your faculties. 

Take next the witness of the soul. Let me ex- 
plain what I mean by soul. If you and your dog 
stand on " Table Kock" and look off at Niagara, 
the two pairs of eyes probably see much alike. But 
if you be a man of any soul, you will see immeasur- 
ably more than your dog sees. I am not denying 
that in a certain sense a dog has a soul. That is a 
mere matter of the meaning of the word. The soul 
I am speaking of now, is what the dog has not, and 
you have. Perhaps we might have called it imag- 
ination, but so many- people think that the imagin- 
ation has only to do with imaginary things, that 
its associations are misleading. What we refer to 
is that faculty which recognizes the beautiful and 
sublime in nature, images the perfect in life, and 
takes hold, so to speak, of the skirt of the Infinite. 
That this is a bona fide faculty of the human soul 
no one will deny, though on account of sadly pre- 
valent neglect and starvation it is reduced to very 
small dimensions in most men. Still, it is a facul- 



36 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

ty of the soul, and, as such, we cannot suppose it to 
be an utter delusion. There have been skeptics 
who have been bold enough to say so. One, in 
particular, has gone the length of casting ridicule 
on men's admiration of the starry heavens, which 
he characterizes as a "luminous eruption, no more 
worthy of wonder than an eruption in man, or a 
swarm of flies;' 5 but I doubt if any of us is so hope- 
lessly prosaic as to agree to this. Now, unless this 
feeling of wonder and awe be entirely false and 
misleading, it must point us to One above us, in 
whom all our ideals are realized and always abide. 
I know that to most people this witness is but a 
faint one, but it is not from any defect in itself, but 
simply because this is a part of our nature that is 
more neglected than any other. 

On the other hand, here again, as in the former 
case, you will find minds that can rest in it, as in it- 
self all sufficient and irresistible. As an illustra- 
tion, read once more Coleridge's " Hymn before 
Sunrise in the Valley of Chamonix." By the bye, 
what utter nonsense that much admired hymn must 
be, if there is no force in this witness of the soul 
to God! 

"We come, in the third place, to the witness of the 
conscience, with its irresistible conviction of obli- 
gation and responsibility. Obedience is due to 



THE WITNESS WITHIN. 37 

superiors; and why am I summoned to obey, if 
there be no Superior Being to whom my obedience 
is due? "Why do I talk of responsibility if there 
is no one to answer to? Can it be that my very 
conscience, the best of me, is a lie? 

Here, again, there have been those among our 
most distinguished philosophers who have rested 
the evidence for the being of God on this alone. 
Kant is probably the most illustrious of these. By 
his critical philosophy he was led to discredit the 
other witnesses, but when he came to this witness, 
he found it absolutely invulnerable to criticism, 
and announced it accordingly as a sufficient basis 
for faith, even though all the others were silenced. 
"We believe that his critical method was unfairly 
critical, and that, after all his criticisms, the evidence 
of all the witnesses stands as good as ever; but it 
is something to know that such unsparing, relentless 
criticism was powerless to weaken in the slightest 
degree, even in his own estimation, the mighty 
witness of Conscience to the being of God. 

We take the witness of the intellect last, because 
it is the most important; not, indeed, on account 
of any admitted superiority of the intellect to the 
other faculties of the soul, but because the great 
bulk of the discussion is carried on in this region. 
And here we shall pass by the so-called a jpriwi 



38 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

proofs, because it is only those who are well ac- 
customed to abstract metaphysical discussions who 
can appreciate the force that may be in them. And 
there is great abundance without them. 

It is one of the laws of our intellectual nature 
that we cannot think of anything beginning to ex- 
ist without a cause. We are continually inquiring 
into the causes of things. And we are making large 
progress in the discovery of causes. But all the 
causes we have yet discovered by our search are 
themselves effects. They, in their turn, began to 
exist; and hence a cause must be sought for them 
too. And so the mind is led back, and back, and can 
find no rest until it reaches the great first Cause. 
The only way to escape the force of this reasoning is 
to hold the eternity of the universe; to deny that the 
universe, as a whole, ever began to exist; in which 
case it is not necessary to seek a cause back of the 
universe itself. But besides the great difficulty of 
believing that the universe of matter is eternal, it 
cannot be denied that the recent investigations of 
science all point in the direction of a beginning. 
The evidences against the eternity of the universe 
are multiplying every year, and strengthening the 
necessity for a great first Cause " in the beginning. 55 

Now the only way possible for us to conceive of 
a first cause at all clearly is to regard it as will — 



THE WITNESS WITHIN. 39 

the will of a free agent. "We have said that the 
causes which science discloses are all themselves 
effects. But there is one set of causes, and only 
one that we know, that have no appearance of being 
effects, that have all the look of originality about 
them. These are acts of will. Whatever you do 
of your own will, without any external compulsion, 
is a cause simply, so far as you know it. What is 
the cause of this book rising from the table? The 
hand that holds it. What raises the hand? The 
arm. What raises the arm ? The muscles. What 
contracts the muscles? The nerves. What stimu- 
lates the nerves? The brain. What sets the brain 
in motion? The will. That is the end of the se- 
ries. You can go no further. The only first cause 
of which we have any knowledge is will. And 
hence we are constrained by the law of our intel- 
lectual constitution, if we take it for our guide (and 
we have no other), to conceive of the great first 
Cause, as Will in action. " He spake, and it was 
done; He commanded, and it stood fast." 

Again, we are constrained by a law of our intel- 
lectual constitution, not only to demand a cause for 
everything that begins to exist, but to demand an 
adequate cause. Out of nothing, nothing comes. 
And if only a part of an effect can be attributed to 
any particular cause, we cannot rest till the remain- 
der of the effect is accounted for also. Hence it 



40 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

follows that, inasmuch as there is life in the uni- 
verse^ the great first Cause must be a living cause. 
And this is altogether irrespective of the question 
as to whether it is possible to get life produced by 
a process of nature out of dead matter. I do not 
believe it will ever be done. But even supposing it 
was found that among the wonderful evolutions of 
nature must be included the development of dead 
matter into living organisms, we should simply 
have to alter our conceptions of the so-called dead 
matter. It might still have the appearance of dead 
matter; but if it were possible for life to be got out 
of it, there must be life in it somehow, however 
deep down in its being and far hid from our eyes it 
might be. Out of nothing, nothing comes. And 
if anything be absolutely and totally dead, you 
cannot get life out of it. You can conceive of a 
living agent putting life into dead matter, but it is 
clearly impossible to get life out of it in any shape, 
if there were not life in it previously in some shape. 
Hence, in any event, it is utterly impossible to es- 
cape the conclusion that the first cause of the uni- 
verse must have been a living cause. And accord- 
ingly even the strictest materialists, when they 
think at all clearly on the subject, attribute to the 
original atoms at least the " promise and potency" 
of life. So you see the choice is not between a liv- 
ing cause and a dead cause, but between one living 



THE WITNESS WITHIN. 41 

cause and countless millions of living causes. And 
whether it is more rational to assume one really liv- 
ing God or countless millions of potentially living 
atoms, as the great first cause of the system of 
things in which w T e live, I think I may leave a can- 
did mind to judge. 

Furthermore, this same law of our intellectual 
constitution constrains us to seek an intelligent 
cause. Here we might argue back from the fact 
of intelligent existence, just as we have been doing 
from the fact of life. In the same way, as the atoms 
must have been potentially living before it was pos- 
sible that life could have been evolved out of them, 
so they must have been potentially intelligent be- 
fore intelligence could have been evolved out of 
them. There must always be involution before there 
can be evolution ; and the question still remains, if 
the atoms are possessed of even potential life and 
intelligence, where did that potential life and intel- 
ligence come from? And here again the alterna- 
tive is between one living, intelligent God, and 
millions upon millions of potentially living and 
intelligent atoms as the great first cause of the uni- 
verse. 

But besides the fact of intelligent life, there are, 
also, the marks of intelligence all over creation. 
Here we come to the great " argument from design," 
as it has been called. But this covers so vast afield 



42 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

that we must reserve it for separate consideration. 
There the evidences for the being of God are so 
multitudinous that no one who has even a small 
fraction of them clearly in view, without being 
mystified by the sophisms of those who have tried 
to obscure their meaning and destroy their force, 
can fail to be thoroughly convinced. This we hope 
to see clearly in next lecture. 

Meanwhile let us see where we are. We have 
had the testimony of the heart, the testimony of the 
soul, the testimony of the conscience, the testimony 
of the intellect — all pointing in the one direction. 
Each of these witnesses alone has been found suf- 
ficient by some of the greatest and best men that 
ever lived. And w r hat shall we say of the strength 
of the evidence when all the four are found to con- 
verge to the same result ! Remember what we 
found in regard to the nature of evidence — that the 
second independent witness far more than doubles, 
and the third immeasurably more than trebles, the 
strength of the evidence. And here we have four, 
not one of which can be impeached in truthfulness 
without making our nature a lie and the certain 
knowledge of anything an impossibility. May we 
not, then, assuredly believe that God is, and shall 
we not worship and honor and love Him with all 
our heart and soul and strength and mind? 



LECTUKE III. 

THE WITNESS WITHOUT. 

We have had the evidence for the existence of 
God from our spiritual constitution, and we have 
found there at least four independent witnesses: 
the heart, the soul, the conscience, and the intel- 
lect. "We now look out into the wide universe to 
see what we can find there. And as soon as we 
open our eyes upon the great world without us, we 
recognize what seem to be unmistakable signs of a 
designing and controlling mind everywhere. We 
do not need to go further than our own bodies for 
evidence which is quite irresistible to the unsophis- 
ticated. Study the eye, the ear, the hand, any part 
of that curious and most complicated mechanism 
which brings us into relation to the outer world, 
and the evidence is already complete. Then you 
may consider the body as a whole, with the wonder- 
ful mutual adaptations of its various parts. You 
may then think of the relation of these bodies of 
ours to their environment : to the air which we 

(43) 



4A THE FOUNDATIONS. 

breathe, the light by which we see, the food we eat, 
the water we drink, the earth on which we tread, 
and so on through innumerable relations, everyone 
of which in its accuracy of adaptation is a separate 
evidence of the consummate wisdom of Him whose 
thought it expresses. And if in our own bodies 
we see such overwhelming evidences of design, 
what shall we say of the tens of thousands of species 
of living creatures with which the earth is peopled, 
every one of which is a study in itself ? "What 
shall we say of the innumerable varieties of plants, 
every one of them a closely-packed volume of 
thought ? "What shall we say of the wonders which 
science has revealed to us of the action and inter- 
action of the great forces of nature, such as gravi- 
tation, heat and electricity — of the endless varia- 
tions and combinations of matter, from the invisi- 
ble atom and molecule to the vast mass of the 
planets and suns which the spectroscope has proved 
to be made up of the same elements with which we 
on earth are so familiar ; and of the great laws of 
order by which these tremendous forces, and these 
huo^e masses, and those most delicate and fragile or- 
ganisms are all so regulated, and controlled, and 
related to each other, that the vast system is no 
chaos but a true cosmos? "What more can we say 
with our larger view than was said of old : " O 



THE WITNESS WITHOUT. 45 

Lord, liow manifold are Thy works ! In wisdom 
hast Thou made them all; the earth is full of Thy 
riches ? " 

To those who are not acquainted with the direc- 
tion of recent discussions on the subject, it will no 
doubt seem very strange that any sane mind should 
question the force of such evidences as these. But, 
such is the ingenuity of modern skepticism that, 
though new investigations are continually adding 
to the vast multitude of the evidences, yet there 
never was a time when the conclusions to which 
they point have been more obstinately doubted. 
Clouds of sophistry have been raised, and the vision 
of many has been sadly obscured. And the task 
for him who would present the evidence, is -not to 
multiply illustrations — this is done as effectively 
as could be desired by some of those who reject the 
conclusion, as for example, in some of the fascina- 
ting studies of Charles Darwin — but to clear away 
those clouds of sophistry in which the entire subject 
has been enveloped. This is what we shall now at- 
tempt to do. 

Remember, first, that you can not get rid of in- 
tention in the doing of a thing by showing how it 
is done. Even after we have learned all about the 
way in which a watch is constructed, it is quite as 
evident as before, that it was constructed for a pur- 



46 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

pose, and that it would never have been, unless 
there previously had been a mind to design it. 
And even supposing some wonderfully complex 
machine were invented which dispensed with all 
need of watch-making skill; that all that was 
necessary was to feed it with pieces of gold and 
steel, etc., and watches would come out at the other 
end ; would that prove that the watch was not the 
product of intelligence? By a certain sophistry it 
could be made to appear so. " You see that boy 
who is putting the metal into the receiver? Well, 
he has scarcely an idea in his head. He has no 
more idea of the mechanism of a watch than a dog 
has. Yet you say the watches he is making are the 
product of intelligence ! " The fallacy is very trans- 
parent. It seems to need little intelligence if you 
take for granted the system of things ready to the 
boy's hand. But when you ask how came that 
system there, you find that in order to explain it, 
you require to assume not only the intelligence 
which is expressed in the watch itself, but that 
which is expressed in the complicated machine by 
which all the parts are put together without the 
need of any further skill in the process. Suppose 
now, finally, that a machine were constructed that 
did not even need feeding, that could select and 
attract its own materials and carry on the whole 



THE WITNESS WITHOUT. 47 

process without either an engineer or even a boy to 
attend to it. Would you say that the watches 
made by such a machine were produced without 
intelligence? Is it not evident that the more you 
dispense with the skill of an artificer in the pro- 
cess, the more need is there for a high degree of 
intelligence in the original invention? I have 
chosen the good old watch illustration, just because 
it has been so much objected to. It has been 
objected to as leading to a pitiable u carpenter 
theory" of the world, as Herbert Spencer calls it, 
as if the Deity were some great man standing out- 
side of his work, and making it as a carpenter 
makes a chair or a watchmaker a watch. And the 
objectors suppose that as soon as they have shown 
that the work is not done from without, but as it 
were from within, — that as soon as they have shown 
an array of blind forces busily at work producing 
the result without intelligence, they have got rid 
of the argument altogether; whereas the simple 
truth is, they have only added so much to its force. 
It is not so immediately apparent, because the 
forces which you see actually working are unintel- 
ligent; but very little reflection is needed to make 
it evident that back of these unintelligent forces 
there must have been a designing mind that set the 
whole train in operation. 



48 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

Suppose, now, we drop the illustration of a watch 
and take, instead, an apple. An apple certainly 
looks as if it were something more than a chance 
combination of particles of matter. It looks as it 
the different parts of it were adapted to each other, 
and as if the whole of it were intended for some 
use or uses. Isow how does it affect the question 
to show that the apple is the product of certain un- 
intelligent forces in the tree itself ? It only shows 
that the tree needs to be accounted for as well as 
the apple. And how does it affect the question to 
know that this wonderful apple-making machine 
(for it is this, though it is much more than this) 
feeds itself and runs itself ? The only difference it 
makes is that the self-feeding and self-running have 
to be added to the evidences of intelligence in the 
whole phenomenon. 

Xow apply this to Prof. Tyndall's famous at- 
tempt to construct (in theory) the eye by means of 
1«he action of light, causing first a slight bulging of 
the epidermis, and then IC through the operation of 
infinite adjustments" at length reaching the " per- 
fection it displays in the hawk and the eagle." 
Most unsophisticated people would think it a most 
absurd attempt to explain the formation of the eye. 
But even supposing it were quite correct, would it 
take away the evidence of an intelligent mind in 



THE WITNESS WITHOUT. 49 

designing and producing the eye ? What about 
the life, and light, and the many complex conditions 
which he classes together as environment, all which 
he needs to start with ? Give me the right kind of 
material and the right kind of environment, and I 
will make watches without any effort of mind quite 
as well as Prof. Tyndall can make eyes. And then 
after he gets the right kind of material and the 
right kind of force and the right kind of environ- 
ment, he still needs further, "in finite adjustments." 
I use his own phrase "infinite adjustments." 
Where does he get any adjustments if, as he holds, 
nothing is adjusted ? Ah ! these words "environ- 
ment" and "adjustment" are very convenient. 
They seem to be so simple. They seem to make a 
thing so plain. Whereas they really leave the 
problem as complex as ever, and as much as ever 
in need of intelligence to account for it. And yet 
how many unreasoning people are there who think 
that Prof. Tyndall has accounted for the wonderful 
mechanism of the eye without any intelligent cause 
by saying that it is due to infinite adjustments, by 
an adjusted light, upon an adjusted epidermis, in an 
adjusted environment ! Is it not manifest that there 
is nothing in all these phrases but a fog of sophistry, 
and that the evidence which the eye furnishes of intel- 
ligence in the Creator is left as strong as ever? 
4 



50 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

Remember, in the second place, that you can not 

explain complexity by putting it so far away that 
you can no longer discern it. A considerable de- 
gree of skill is required to construct a great balloon. 
And as you look at it upon the ground, it is quite a 
complex mechanism. But after it has sailed away up 
until it is nearly out of sight you lose sight of all the 
complexity of its construction, and, for all you can 
see, it would require no skill to make it. But 
no one in his senses would say that as soon as it got 
nearly or quite out of sight all evidence of intelli- 
gence in its construction was gone. TTe shall see 
presently how the illustration applies. Here is the 
evolution theory as given by Tyndall: ^Xot only 
the more ignoble forms of animalcular or animal life, 
not alone the noble forms of the horse and the lion, 
not alone the exquisite and wonderful mechanism 
of the human body, but the human mind itself— 
emotion, intellect, will, and all their phenomena — ■ 
were once latent in a fiery cloud." Xow apart 
altogether from the probability or improbability of 
that theory, consider a moment whether it really 
accounts for the complexity of the universe. It 
seems to do it. A cloud is to our notion a very 
simple thing. But what of this evolution cloud? 
I do not refer merely to its being fiery. That is a 
very slight addition to its complexity. But think 



THE WITNESS WITHOUT. 51 

of the infinity of things that are in it. They are 
"latent" there, it is true. But what does latent 
mean ? Lying hid. They are all there, only we 
can not see them. Does the fact that we can not 
see them get rid of them? By no means. The 
latent complexity of the far-away balloon is as real 
as the patent complexity of the near one. And the 
latent complexity of the evolutionist's fiery cloud is 
as real as the patent complexity of the vast and 
varied universe which they say has been evolved out 
of it. And if we wanted crowning evidence of in- 
finite intelligence, we should ask nothing more 
overwhelming than the fact of the existence of such 
a fiery cloud, with such w r onderful complexity and 
potency lying hid in it. 

Herbert Spencer says (in his "First Principles"), 
and the long words give an air of very great wis- 
dom to the saying: " The transformation of an in- 
definite, incoherent, homogeneity into a definite, co- 
herent heterogeneity, which goes on everywhere * 
* is consequent upon certain simple laws of force;" 
wdiich being translated means this: The simple is 
constantly being changed into the complex by mere 
force (without intelligence). Now let me ask your 
attention while I expose the fallacy here. The idea 
is that by tracing back, for example, all the forms 
of animal organism to simple protoplasm, as evolu- 



52 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

tion seeks to do, and many think it has done, you 
have no longer to account for the complexity of 
eyes and ears and hands and feet and so on, but 
only for the simple structureless protoplasm out of 
which all have been evolved. But what do "simple" 
and "structureless" mean as applied to protoplasm? 
Do they mean really simple and really structureless? 
Nothing of the kind. They mean simple and 
structureless so far as our eyes aided by our micro- 
scopes can see. No further. And the more 
thoughtful of our evolutionists are beginning to ac- 
knowledge this. As evidence let me quote from 
the inaugural address of President Allman at the 
last meeting of the British Association: "Of two 
particles of protoplasm between which we may de- 
fy all the power of the microscope, and all the re- 
sources of the laboratory to detect a difference, one 
can develop only to a jelly-fish, the other only to a 
man, and one conclusion alone is here possible, — 
that deep within them there must be a fundamental 
difference, which thus determines their inevitable 
destiny, but of which we know nothing, and can 
assert nothing beyond the statement that it must 
depend on their hidden molecular constitution. 
In the molecular condition of protoplasm there 
is probably as much complexity as in the disposi- 
tion of organs in the most highly differentiated 



THE WITNESS WITHOUT. 53. 

organisms; and between two masses of protoplasm 
indistinguishable from one another, there may be 
as much molecular difference as there is between 
the form and arrangement of organs in the most 
widely separated animals and plants." You see, 
then, evolution is not from the really simple, 
but only from the apparently simple, to the com- 
plex. Is the complexity any less because it is 
"deep within?" Does it explain or even simplify it 
at all to shift it from organic conditions in which 
we see it, to molecular conditions in which we can- 
not see it? Not at all. The wonder remains as 
great as ever, if anything, greater; and the necessity 
as urgent as ever for an intelligent power to account 
for the latent complexity of things which seem so 
simple and are " so wondrous wise." 

Remember, next, that you cannot dispense with 
intelligence by laying stress upon laws. Every one 
sees, of course, that original creation is not touched 
by the supposition of laws. There must be some- 
thing to regulate before there can be a law. But 
many seem to think that with the exception of the 
bare act of creation, the laws of nature shut God 
out of the universe, and account for all its changes 
without Him. But what is a law of nature? It is 
simply a certain order in which things are invar- 
iably done. But we have already shown that to 



54: THE FOUNDATIONS. 

explain the order in which a thing is done does not 
show that it can be done without intelligence, far 
less that no one does it. What do these people, 
that make so much of the potency of laws, imag- 
ine that laws are? Are they persons or things, or 
what? Are they anything else than a statement 
of the order in which things are done? Take, 
for example, the law that is made so much of 
now-a-days: the law of the correlation and conser- 
vation of force. What is it? I understand it to 
be a statement of certain invariable relations that 
have been discovered among the forces of nature. 
But a statement of certain relations does not surely 
account for them. It has been w^ell said by Prof. 
Christlieb: "The old heathen personified the forces 
of nature and made them demi-gods; we do the 
same and call them laws. The heathen, however, 
were rational enough to place these individual les- 
ser gods in subjection to the Most High; while we 
invest our laws of nature with sovereign power, in 
whose august presence the very hands of God Him- 
self are tied and bound!" The truth is that the 
laws of nature are among the very wonders of the 
universe which need to be accounted for, and which 
cannot be accounted for without a designing and 
controlling mind. 

The want of time forbids me to take up some 



THE WITNESS WITHOUT. 55 

minor sophistries, such as the quibble of John 
Stuart Mill, that the adaptation of means to an end 
implies weakness — an objection which he presents 
as if it were new, and which lias been hailed by 
many as if it were new, though you will find it 
taken up and answered in so old and well-known a 
book as Paley (Natural Theology, Chap. Ill) — or 
the many appeals to our ignorance by pointing 
out things of which we cannot now see the use, in 
answer to which it is enough to say that there are 
so many, many things in which we can see con- 
summate wisdom, that it is not unreasonable to 
take some things on trust which we can not 
see, and join with the psalmist, even though we 
have to go beyond the region of knowledge 
and into that of faith in making the ascription 
universal, " O, Lord, how manifold are Thy works; 
in wisdom hast Thou made them all; the earth is 
full of Thy riches." 

And now, having reached the limit of time, I 
am reluctantly compelled to come to a conclusion 
by pointing out that, though we have been able 
only in the slightest way to open up the subject, 
we yet have evidence for the existence of God be- 
yond what we have for the existence of our fellow- 
men. What evidence have I that you exist; you 
as an intelligent being, I mean? I can not see your 



56 THE FOUNDATION. 

intelligence. I can not see you, strictly speaking, 
at all. I see certain motions of your body which 
look like intelligence (though I may not think that 
all of them do — some of your actions may be such 
that I can not see much sense in them), and I am 
conscious of some sensations which seem to be in 
my ear, and which appear to me to be the result of 
certain vibrations of the air, of which the motion 
of your lips and the force of your lungs seem to me 
to be the cause, and from these material phenomena 
I infer the existence of a spirit in relation to mine. 
Well, we have precisely the same kind of evidence 
for the existence of God; and in addition, we have, 
as we have seen, the witness within us, the testi- 
mony of the heart, of the soul, of the conscience, 
and of the intellect. 

How is it, then, if the evidence is so complete, 
that there can be any atheism? A very lengthened 
answer might be given to this question, but I can 
only make two suggestions, — the one looking to in- 
tellectual, the other to moral, considerations. The 
phenomena by which I judge of your existence are 
all within so limited an area that they can be easily 
grasped in their unity, and they are so familiar that 
I can easily explain them as in harmony with each 
other; whereas, the phenomena by which I judge 
of the existence of God are so vast and varied and 



THE WITNESS WITHOUT. 57 

widely scattered, and many of them so difficult to 
interpret, that the mind becomes confused by the 
magnitude of the subject. But, though the reason- 
ing is more difficult to follow, it is precisely the 
same reasoning, and just as valid, as the other; and 
though the conclusion is often missed, it is reached 
(when it is reached), exactly in the same way, and on 
the same grounds as the other. But besides the in- 
tellectual difficulties there are moral difficulties. 
The disturbing element of sin is one which must 
not be lost sight of. Men are in danger of saying 
in their hearts, " There is no God." And the all- 
too-natural aversion of the human heart to God 
gives only a too sufficient explanation of the preva- 
lence of unbelief in the Divine presence and agency 
in the universe. 

We do not deny that there are difficulties in the 
subject and obstacles in the human heart; and that 
is the reason why we hold that, though the evidences 
for the being and agency, and even for the goodness 
of God, are amply sufficient to satisfy a candid in- 
quirer, yet there is room and there is need for a 
revelation, to explain, so far as may be, the difficul- 
ties, and remove the obstructions to the knowledge 
and worship and love of the only living and true 
God. This we hope to see quite clearly in our 
next lecture. 



SECOND PART. 



THE CHIEF CORNER STONE, 
<£oti in atijrtet. 



LECTURE IV. 

REVELATION" OF GOD IN A HUMAN LIFE. 

From the bed-rock of Theism we pass now to 
the temple of Christianity which is reared upon it. 
From the great fact of the universe, that " God is," 
we pass to the great fact of history, that " God 
w T as in Christ." Our former inquiry was as to 
the foundation of all religion. Our present in- 
quiry is as to the foundation of Christianity dis- 
tinctively. Let us then proceed to this second in- 
quiry as carefully and as candidly as we can. 

At the outset we have to encounter an unreason- 
ing and unreasonable prejudice in the common 
notion among skeptics, that it is an extremely im- 
probable thing that God would make Himself 
known in a human life. If any man in the present 
day should set up the claim to be himself a revel- 
ation of God, all sensible people would consider 
him fit for a lunatic asylum. And why, they say, 
should we treat such a claim any differently from 
the mere fact of its being made long ago? Which 

(61) 



62 THE FOUXDATIOXS. 

would be sensible enough, if there was nothing but 
the mere fact of its being made long ago. But 
what if there be so many facts and considerations 
in the case of the claim advanced by Jesus of Xaz- 
areth, that no man who allows these facts and con- 
siderations their proper weight, can fail to recog- 
nize that His claim is unique and irresistible! Some 
of these many facts and considerations we shall 
present further on. Meantime what we propose to 
do is, to show that there is no improbability in 
God's revealing Himself in a human life, but that 
it is just what, from an intelligent view of man and 
his environment, we should naturally and reason- 
ably expect. 

We have seen that the revelation which God has 
given of Himself in nature and in the soul of man 
is sufficient to prove His existence and agency, 
"His eternal power and godhead;" but it is not 
sufficient to satisfy the craving of his nature, and 
meet the wants which spring out* of his circum- 
stances. Even the intellect requires something 
more definite in order to a clear and abiding con- 
viction of God's personality. "We have seen at the 
close of the last lecture that, though the personality 
of God is revealed to us in the same way as the 
personality of our fellow-men, yet the tokens of it 
are distributed over so wide an area, and many of 



REVELATION OF GOD IN A HUMAN LIFE, 63 

them so difficult to interpret, that the mind is apt 
to be bewildered and lost. "We have a touching 
illustration of this in the cry of Job: "Behold I go 
forward, but He is not there; and backward, but I 
cannot perceive Him ; on the left hand, where He 
doth work, but I cannot behold Him; He hideth 
Himself on the right hand, that I cannot see Him." 
And it is a well-known fact, that those who reject 
the revelation of God in Christ are very apt to lose 
their conviction of His personality. Hence the dei- 
fication of natural laws; hence Pantheism; hence, 
too, Agnosticism. Hence also such speculations as 
that of Matthew Arnold about " the power, not our- 
selves, that makes for righteousness." The intel- 
lect then craves and needs a definite revelation of 
personality. 

The conscience, too, craves additional light. "We 
cannot think of the God of the universe as anything 
but a just God. Yet how many things are there 
which it seems impossible to reconcile with justice. 
And then there is sin. What are we to do about 
it? Here, then, you see there are two great ques- 
tions awaiting solution. How can God be shown 
to be just with man? And how shall man be just 
with God? To these questions nature gives no an- 
swer; and the conscience cries out for a revelation. 

Then there is the cry of the heart. There are 



64 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

many things in nature that tell of divine good- 
ness; but then there are so many things which, 
seem to contradict them. And even though good- 
ness were proved, the heart wants more, it craves 
for love. And can it be, that the God who has im- 
planted this great, this seemingly divine love in 
my heart is a stranger to it Himself? Nature 
seems a revelation of law; and the heart inquires, 
may there not be also a revelation of love? 
Finally there is the cry of the soul. 

" Here sits he shaping wings to fly; 
His heart forbocles a mystery; 
He names the name, Eternity: 
That type of Perfect in his mind 
In Nature can he nowhere find. 11 

And shall it not be found at all? And shall the 
veil which hides the eternal world remain forever 
drawn ? Must it be that we shall have no hint of 
w r hat the future life shall be, or even any assurance 
whether it shall be at all? 

Sucli considerations as these are often brought 
forward as arguments against the existence of God. 
But it is manifest that in such a connection they are 
out of place. They are all appeals to our igno- 
rance; and as we have seen, we have no right to let 
what we do not know disturb what we do know. 
But as we are using them now, they are not an ap- 



REVELATION OF GOD IN A HUMAN LIFE. 65 

peal to ignorance, but an appeal from ignorance, 
calling for more light. While they by no means 
discredit what we otherwise know about God, they 
do show very clearly that the light of nature is not 
sufficient, and that therefore we may reasonably ex- 
pect some further revelation. We sorely need some 
revelation which will be not only as valid, but as 
definite and intelligible as is the revelation which 
we make of ourselves when we speak to one another, 
or as near it in definiteness and intelligibility as 
the nature of the case will admit of. 

And now the questions come: Can God give 
such a revelation? And will He give it? That He 
can do it no believer in the existence of God can 
deny. " He that formed the eye, shall He not see?" 
He that has given us the faculty of speech, can He 
not speak to us ? Of course He can, if he will. But 
will He? No one can tell certainly; because He 
is a free agent. But if God is just and kind, as we 
cannot help believing Him to be, if we believe 
in God at all (for belief in an unjust and unkind 
God would be manifestly worse than atheism itself), 
if He is just and kind, we have every reason to be- 
lieve that He will. And all the analogy of nature is 
in favor of it. Wherever there is a mouth, there is 
something to fill it; wherever there is a w T ant, there 
is some provision for its supply, and when every part 



66 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

of man's spiritual nature cries out for a definite reve- 
lation of God, surely it is not unreasonable to sup- 
pose that it may be forthcoming. 

"We see then that it is not only not improbable, 
but in the highest degree likely, that God should 
add some revelation to that which nature supplies. 
It remains to be seen whether it is probable that 
such a revelation should be given in a human life^ 
such as was that of Jesus of Nazareth. 

In order that we may be prepared intelligently 
to consider this question, let us inquire into the 
necessary conditions of God's revealing Himself to 
man. "What must God do in order to bring His 
personality distinctly within the range of human 
knowledge? Two conditions are necessary. First, 
self-limitation. God is infinite, we are finite. The 
finite can not grasp the infinite; and accordingly 
the revelation must be through the medium of 
some finite representation. Bat not only is self- 
limitation necessary; there must also be condescen- 
sion to the limits of the human faculties. There 
might have been many ways of revelation through 
the medium of the finite, which would have been 
quite out of the reach of our faculties. The revel- 
ation which God will make of Himself, therefore, 
must be in terms of that which is already known. 
Not only was it necessary that the revelation should 



BEVELATIOIST OF GOD IN A HUMAN LIFE. 67 

be given in some finite form, but in some familiar 
form. Not only must it be something we could by 
possibility grasp, but something we could readily 
understand. 

Tou see, then, that the revelation, if made at all, 
must be made through the medium of some of the 
finite things with which we are familiar. Now, of 
all these things, which would you consider the 
most likely? You would certainly expect that use 
would be made of that which was superior rather 
than of that which was inferior. Manifestly the 
higher in the scale of being, the better for the pur- 
pose. Well, what is the highest thing in the scale 
of being that you familiarly know? Is it not a 
human life, a pure and true human life? From 
this it follows that a human life, such as that of 
Jesus of Nazareth was, is the best conceivable 
medium for the revelation of God. 

As this is a matter of very great importance, let 
me illustrate it a little further. Let us for the 
moment put ourselves in the skeptical attitude of 
one of the disciples of Christ when he said, " Lord, 
show us the Father, and it sufficeth us." The diffi- 
culty of Philip, you see, is just the difficulty which 
many have at the present time. It did not satisfy 
him to have the existence of a Father in Heaven as 
a matter of faith; he wanted it as a matter of 



68 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

knowledge. " If He exists let Him show Himself," 
he pleads. Reasonably enough, we say. It is quite 
reasonable that our Father in Heaven should take 
some means of showing Himself to us. Well, then 
suppose some manifestation is expected, of what 
nature may it be? To be quite satisfactory, it 
must to some extent, come within the range of our 
senses, and best of all if it come within the range 
of sight, according to the common proverb, " see- 
ing is believing." "Well, what kind of a shape 
do you think such a skeptic as Philip might 
reasonably expect to see? Of all the shapes you 
can think. of, which would be the most appropri- 
ate? To this there can be only one answer. If any 
shape at all was to be expected, it must, beyond all 
doubt, have been that of a man ; because it is the 
noblest and most expressive form we know any- 
thing about. Where do you look for the highest 
efforts in art — in painting for example? Is it in 
dealing with the lovely landscape, or with the toss- 
ing sea, or with the golden clouds of sunset? Or 
the chosen fields of Sir Edwin Landseer and Rosa 
Bonheur, — are these the highest fields of art? Is 
there not one department which stands above them 
all — the delineation of "the human face divine?" 
Higher than this art cannot go. Our artists paint 
angels, it is true, but is it not with human faces 



REVELATION OF GOD IN A HUMAN LIFE. 69 

that they paint them? As for the wings , it is a 
question whether they would not be better angels 
without them. The art, at all events, in painting 
a good angel is not in producing the wings, but in 
drawing the face and the form. It is in that which 
is human in the picture, that the glory and the 
beauty are found. If, then, any form was to be 
expected at all, reason would undoubtedly declare it 
must be the form of a man. But again, surely, it 
would not be a dead shape, like a statue or a pic- 
ture, or a lifeless spectral form, that a reasonable 
man would expect to see as a manifestation of the 
living God. Surely it would be not merely the 
shape of a living thing, but a living shape. Clearly 
so. "Well then, what have we come to? A form 
is expected? Yes. Of a man? Yes. Living? 
Yes. Why, what is that but just a man? And 
there he is! There He stands, eyes beaming with 
highest intelligence, face wreathed in the most 
attractive smile, heart beating with the warmest 
love, voice soft and tremulous with suppressed emo- 
tion, as in tenderest tones He speaks and says, in 
answer to the skeptical disciple's appeal: " Have I 
been so long time with you and yet hast thou not 
known me, Philip? He that hath seen Me hath 
seen the Father." 

Suppose, now, we approach the subject on an- 



70 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

other side. "What is wanted is a revelation of God 
as near as possible in definiteness and intelligibility 
to the revelation which we make of ourselves to 
one another. "Well, how do we get to know one 
another? Let us try several ways and see which 
is the best and most promising. Can you get to 
know a man by seeing specimens of his workman- 
ship? Not well. If you go into a carpenter-shop 
when the carpenter is not there, you can learn some- 
thing about the man no doubt. You can judge 
somewhat of his skill; and, after you have looked 
all around and examined as carefully as you can 
every specimen of his handicraft you can find, you 
may be able to tell something about his hands and 
a little about his head; but you can scarcely say 
that you know him. Or, if you go into an artist's 
studio when the artist is not there, and look at his 
works as they are disposed about the room, you 
may be able to pronounce some opinion on the 
artist, but you can scarcely say you know the man. 
It is only a very little way that the sight of a per- 
son's works will carry you in getting to know him. 
"Will it do to tell us words he has spoken ? This 
is a good deal better. You can learn a great deal 
more about a person from the words he speaks than 
from the things he makes. From written words 
you can learn something. From spoken words you 



EEVELATION OF GOD IN A HUMAN LIFE. 71 

can learn more. But even words, however much of 
revelation there is in them, are not the ultimate reve- 
lation of a person. If all you know of a person is sim- 
ply what he says, your knowledge is still imperfect. 

What is wanted besides? Tou want to know 
how he acts. Besides his works and his words, you 
want to see his doings, his conduct day by day. 
That is the ultimate revelation of a man. To know 
him thoroughly you must have him live before 
yon, you must see how he bears himself amid the 
vicissitudes of life, in its trials and temptations, its 
joys and sorrows. To what does all this bring us? 
Just to the same point which we have reached 
already by other roads: that if we are to have a 
revelation of our Father God, such as our nature 
craves and needs, it must be in a life, a life like 
to our own — a human life. 

You see, then, how unreasoning and how unrea- 
sonable is the prejudice so common among skeptics, 
that it is an extremely improbable thing that God 
would reveal himself in a human life. It is just 
the reverse. It is extremely probable on principles 
of reason alone. 

It is true, indeed, that there are difficulties in- 
volved in the thought of " God manifest in the 
flesh." How could it be otherwise? But it will 
be found that all these difficulties resolve themselves 



72 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

into the necessary conditions of revelation with 
which we set out, viz., self-limitation, and conde- 
scension to our weakness. These conditions, of 
course, limit the extent of the revelation. For 
example, we cannot say that in the man Christ 
Jesus there was any revelation of the omnipresence 
of God. The self-limitation involved in the revela- 
tion rendered that an impossibility. And in the 
same way we can not say that the human weaknesses 
of Jesus of Nazareth were a revelation of God. 
These were a part of the necessary condescension 
to meet our wants. The special character of the 
revelation of God that comes to us through the 
human life of Christ is a revelation of the mind 
and heart of God, a revelation of law and love. 
" Grace and truth came by Jesus Christ." And 
a human life was an abundantly adequate medium, 
and not only so, but the best conceivable medium 
for revealing these. 

One word as to the charge of anthropomorphism, 
i. e., the supposed error of constructing the idea of 
God out of human attributes. In order to keep 
clear of danger in this direction, we have only to 
distinguish between the attributing to God of hu- 
man imperfections and weaknesses, which Christian- 
ity never does, and the attributing to Him of per- 
fections which the human mind can conceive in- 



REVELATION OF GOD IN A HUMAN LIFE, 73 

deed, but cannot claim as properly its own. It is 
quite true we must get our first ideas of power and 
wisdom and love and all the rest, from our own 
hearts; but far from its being unreasonable to 
ascribe all these in their perfection to the Divine 
Being, the very fact that we have the conception of 
the infinite and the perfect in connection with these, 
points, as we have already seen, to One in whom all 
these ideals are realized. And if, as our Bible tells 
us, and as even reason itself suggests, we are made 
in the image of God, we have not only a justification, 
but a rationale of the true, as distinguished from 
the false, anthropomorphism. 

We have devoted our attention entirely, in this lec- 
ture, to proving that the revelation of God in a human 
life, far from being the improbable and incredible 
thing which so many infidels represent it to be, is 
natural, reasonable, and probable in a high degree. 
This, of course, does not prove that God is revealed 
in Christ, but it prepares the way for it. And if 
we find, as 1 am sure we shall, that the man Christ 
Jesus, who certainly claimed to be a revelation of 
God, gave all the evidence that we could ask of His 
divine mission, it will be not only reasonable to ad- 
mit His claim and receive Him as u God manifest 
in the flesh," but highly unreasonable to reject it. 
The credentials of Jesus of Nazareth, then, will be 
our next subject. 



LECTURE Y. 

CREDENTIALS OF THE CHEIST. 

Let me remind you that up to the point we have 
readied in our arguments, no use has been made 
of any part of the Bible. Passages have been re- 
ferred to from time to time, but only in the way of 
illustration; no argument has been built upon any 
of them. And in this way we have found abund- 
ant and sufficient reasons for believing in the exist- 
ence and agency of God, and for expecting some 
additional revelation to answer the questions which 
we can not but raise about Him, and to meet wants of 
our nature which can not otherwise be provided for; 
and, furthermore, on principles of reason alone, 
we have discovered that such a revelation can be 
better given through the medium of a human life 
than in any other conceivable way. 

And now we are confronted with the fact that 
one Jesus of Nazareth, who lived a little more than 
eighteen centuries ago, claimed to bring us just such 
a revelation ; and we have to consider whether His 

(74) 



CREDENTIALS OF THE CHRIST. 75 

claim be sucli that we can reasonably entertain it. 
This brings us into the region of history, and leads 
us to enquire what information we can get concern- 
ing the life of the claimant. And here we find, 
among many inferior autho'rs, four who undertake 
to tell us w T hat we want to know about this life. 
These four are Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. 
They happen to be in our day bound up with other 
authors in a book which we call the Bible; but we 
have nothing to do with that just now. Our in- 
quiry has not lad us yet to the inspiration of the 
Scriptures, so we make no use of that doctrine; we 
simply deal with these documents, as we do with 
any other ancient writings that have been handed 
down to us. "We know they could not have been 
concocted in this century, for all through last cen- 
tury there are books which everybody knows to 
have been written then, that refer to them, and 
quote from them. And so w^ith the century beforfe; 
and so back and back, till we come close to the 
time when they profess to have been written, and 
then the quotations and allusions cease. So we 
know that these four books were written by men 
who lived at or near the time w r hen the events are 
said to have taken place. Now let us look into 
them and see if we can find out what kind of 
men they were. Clearly they could not have been 



76 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

bad men, for bad men could not have written if they 
would, and would not have w 7 ritten if they could, 
such books as these. They were evidently simple- 
minded men; for, if ever there were simplicity and 
straightforwardness in literature, it is there. They 
manifestly were not fools, or there would have been 
some trace of folly in their books. It seems abund- 
antly evident, and more -and more so, the more we 
examine their writings, that they were men who in- 
tended to tell the truth, who tried their best to tell 
the truth, and who therefore are, in the main, to 
be believed. They are certainly to be believed in 
everything about which they had a fair opportu- 
nity of judging. There may be some things, as, for 
instance, where one of them speaks about water be- 
ing changed into wine, where it would be quite 
reasonable to suppose, on mere historical grounds, 
that the author might be mistaken; but, in the 
main, and on all matters concerning which they had 
both the ability and the opportunity to inform 
themselves, we may give credit to what they say. 
This is all we ask at present; and I do not believe 
that there is a historical critic of any standing to- 
day who does not accept the biographies of Matthew, 
Mark, and Luke, at least, as in the main correct and 
true. And remember, the witnesses are independ- 
ent of one another, though of course they had com- 



CREDENTIALS OF THE CHRIST. 77 

mon sources of information. No one who has the 
least pretension to critical ability will say that it 
was one man who wrote all the four, or even any 
two of them. They all differ in style. And then 
while there is thorough harmony in all essentials, 
there are those constant variations in detail, which 
prove that they did not even compare notes so as 
to insure minute correspondence before issuing 
their separate works. 

Now, beyond all question, as a simple matter of 
history, Jesus of Nazareth did claim to have come 
to earth as the revealer of man's unseen God and 
Father. "We have already seen that it is not at all 
unlikely that such an one as He claimed to be should 
appear upon earth. But it remains to be seen 
whether the life of Jesus was in all respects what 
we should reasonably expect it to be, provided His 
claim was well founded. Did He justify his claim 
to be the Christ of God, or was it so little supported 
by evidence that no reasonable man should pay the 
slightest attention to it? That is the question for 
us now; and if we find that He has given us all 
the evidence we could reasonably expect for the 
reality of His mission, surely every reasonable man 
should be well satisfied. 

Let us, then, proceed to the inquiry as to what 
we might reasonably expect in the way of evidence 



78 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

on the part of such an one as Jesus of Nazareth 
claimed to be. To begin with, you would not ex- 
pect anything remarkable in His personal appear- 
ance. You would expect Him to be nothing more 
nor less than a typical man — not one to be exhibited 
or to exhibit himself as a curiosity, but one who 
could go among his fellow men without exciting 
attention by his appearance, or any more attention 
than a remarkably good man might attract by the 
observed benevolence of his countenance and the 
calmness and dignity of his bearing. So you see it 
would be quite possible for multitudes to see Him 
without recognizing Plim. In some pictures you 
see the Christ distinguished from other men by a 
halo around His head. Suppose He had actually 
come with some such distinguishing halo, would it 
have been natural? What other emotion would it 
have excited in the minds of the multitude than 
the idlest of all curiosity? We might, indeed, 
expect that on occasion something of the divine 
glory should shine through; and there are not want- 
ing indications that this was sometimes the case, as 
notably on the occasion of the Transfiguration; but 
as a rule, we should expect His appearance to have 
been just that of a man, a typical man. 

And the same considerations are applicable to 
the length of His life. He lived just the average 



CREDENTIALS OF THE CHKIST. 79 

lifetime of an ordinary generation. He might in- 
deed have lived on till now. But would that have 
been at all natural? Would it not have been just as 
much out of taste and out of reason that He should 
live to a prodigious age, as that He should grow to 
a prodigious stature? In either case He wo r tM not 
have been a man, but only a prodigy. If He had 
either lived on, postponing His death till the end 
of the ages, or had come back in human form after 
His death to stay till the end of the world, there 
would have been this small advantage: that in each 
succeeding generation some rich people who could 
afford to travel, would have had the opportunity of 
seeing Him with their bodily eyes; but everything 
else was against it, and especially this, that in either 
case He would have ceased to be really and truly 
and typically a man ; He could not have claimed 
His favorite designation, " the Son of Man." The 
fact that there was nothing peculiar either in the 
appearance or stature or age of Jesus of Nazareth, 
is not at all against His claim to be the Revealer of 
the Father. 

How, then, is such an one to be recognized at all? 
The answer seems easv. Though it is not natural 
or reasonable to expect Him to be taller than other 
men, it is natural to expect that He will exceed 
them in wisdom and in power, and, though we may 



80 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

not reasonably expect that He will live a longer 
life than other men, we do expect that He will live 
a better one, even a perfectly holy life. These, 
then, are the credentials we should reasonably 
expect: superior wisdom, superior power, and 
superior purity; and all these so much superior that 
it would not be reasonable to assign them to mere 
human genius, human strength, and human virtue. 
We shall take the last of these first, viz., the 
character of Jesus of Nazareth. And here no man 
of intelligence and candor will deny that we find 
all that we could expect of such an one as He 
claimed to be. You cannot think of a single excel- 
lence of character that does not shine out in that 
wonderful life. If you take single features sepa- 
rately, you may be able to think of some of earth's 
great ones whom you could put beside Him. But, 
w r hen you take the combination of them all, He 
manifestly stands absolutely alone. Not only is 
there not in all history one single person that can 
stand beside him; but there is not in all fiction a 
single ideal character that will bear comparison. 
Even such distinguished character painters as 
Shakspeare, for example, or George Eliot in our 
own time, who have had all the advantage of His 
character to model after, do not in their loftiest 
creations approach to the elevation and grandeur of 



CREDENTIALS OF THE CHRIST. 81 

the character of Jesus of Nazareth, as depicted in 
the simple language of the four Evangelists. 

Now consider for a moment what a strong posi- 
tion we have here. We could even build an argu- 
ment, apart from historical evidence, at this point. 
There we have before us the life of Christ by 
Matthew. However it came there, there it is. 
That life was either a creation of Matthew, as 
Hamlet was a creation of Shakspeare, or else it is 
a true portraiture of what Christ actually was. If 
it was a creation of Matthew's genius, then this 
Matthew, who seems to have been quite an obscure 
man, must have had a superhuman genius, so that 
even Shakspeare himself could not compare with 
him. Do you believe that? And even if you 
could, the question would still remain: How could 
it happen that there should be four men of such 
transcendent genius at the same time, whose crea- 
tive powers all led them to produce the same char- 
acter from different points of view, and yet these 
same men be all unknown to fame in any other 
way? The idea is in the last degree absurd. No- 
body believes it or can believe it. Since, then, the 
character of Jesus of Nazareth was not, as it cer- 
tainly could not be, the creation of these four men, 
it follows that it is a true portraiture of what this 
Jesus actually was. And if the very conception of 



82 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

such a character cannot be accounted for except on 
the supposition of superhuman genius, how much 
less can the actual living of such a life be accounted 
for on any other supposition, than that He who 
lived it was indeed what He solemnly claimed to 
be, " the Christ of God?" 

The evidence of the divine mission of Jesus, 
which His character furnishes, is one which grows 
upon you more and more, the more you examine in- 
to it. It is quite possible to read the four gospels 
over and over again without discovering the won- 
ders of the character which they depict. But let 
any one make it a matter of earnest thought and care- 
ful study, and he will continually discover new feat- 
ures to admire, and new combinations of excellencies 
that are never found in combination in other lives. 
Read Horace Bushnell's wonderful little monograph 
on the character of Jesus (which first appeared as 
one of the chapters in his book on " Nature and the 
Supernatural," but has since been published sepa- 
rately), and see if you are not absolutely shut up to 
the conclusion, which he draws, that the character 
of Jesus alone forbids His possible classification 
with men. Being such a man as He was, He must 
have been more than man; He must have been 
what He claimed to be. His character is, in the 
highest degree, a credential of His claim. 



CREDENTIALS OF THE CHRIST. 83 



From His life we pass to His words. Claiming, 
as He does, to be the Revealer of God, we should 
reasonably expect not only a superior character, 
but superior wisdom. If what he says be poor, 
empty, or of little consequence, or if it be only a 
reflection of the mind of his age, with all its errors 
and imperfections traceable through it, then w r e may 
set aside his claim, because his spoken words do not 
bear it out. But is it so? Do not his spoken words 
bear it out ? Can it not be said with as great emphasis 
as ever, after so many centuries of progress, " Never 
man spake like this man ? " Take the first discourse 
we meet with as w r e turn the pages of the first evan- 
gelist, the Sermon on the Mount. Is it feeble? Is 
it poor? Does it savour of the age when it w T as 
spoken ? Is it not as fresh as ever to-day ? Is there 
anything in all literature that can be placed beside 
it? Does not every line of it bear out His claim to 
speak in the name of God ? Or take the last dis- 
course in the upper room, beginning, " Let not 
your heart be troubled." Where can you find any- 
thing in all literature outside of the Bible, that has 
been cherished as these words have been cherished, 
or that has brought such consolation to millions of 
troubled hearts? From first to last the words He 
speaks amply justify His claim. 

Think, too, how easily these w r ords of wisdom 



84: THE FOUNDATIONS. 

fall from Him. He does not retire to His study 
(study He seems to have had none) and read what 
the philosophers before Him had written, and pain- 
fully think out a system of truth. He stands on the 
grassy plain or in the little boat beside the shore, or 
anywhere, and pours out without the slightest effort, 
though only turned thirty, such words of heavenly 
wisdom, as the greatest of the philosophers, after a 
long life given to study and meditation, or even all 
the philosophers of the world together, after all 
their labor, had never been able to equal. Does 
not this, too, correspond with His claim? He 
needs no stimulus of an appreciative audience, even, 
to draw out His powers. "When He speaks to an ob- 
scure woman, who has come to draw water at the 
well, where He is resting in the heat of the day, 
His words are as full of thought and heavenly wis- 
dom as when the great multitudes are thronging 
around Him. In fact, every time He opens His 
mouth, He gives new evidence that He is what He 
claims to be. 

Here/ again, the evidence grows upon you the 
more you study it. There is far more in the words 
of Jesus than at first appears. They are germinal 
words. They are full of seeds of richest thought. 
They unfold living principles. The thought is often 
the deepest when the form is the simplest. Hence 



CREDENTIALS OF THE CHEIST. 85 

the necessity of attention and study, to be able to 
appreciate the evidence which His words furnish of 
His divine mission. Yet how few of the average 
run of skeptics give any attention at all to the 
words of Christ; and even the great skeptical lead- 
ers will find excuses for passing them by, without 
any consideration. Do you happen to know how 
Mill steers clear of all the evidence we have been 
considering? He does it very easily, indeed. He 
disposes of it in a single sentence. Here it is: 
" We cannot have conclusive reason for believing 
that the human faculties were incompetent to find 
out moral doctrines of which the human faculties 
can perceive and recognize the excellence." By 
that single oracular utterance he disposes of all the 
internal evidences of Christianity. It is positively- 
all the notice he takes (in his celebrated Essay on 
Revelation) of the entire array of the internal evi- 
dences, the very presentation of which, in even a 
brief manner, would take a volume. Now let us 
look for a moment at the reason he gives for dis- 
missing them so summarily, and find out, if we can, 
what it amounts to. His idea seems to be, that 
whatever a set of faculties can appreciate, that they 
can produce. The very fact that the human mind 
can appreciate the wisdom of the utterances of 
Jesus of Nazareth proves that the human mind 



86 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

could have produced them. Do you think that a fair 
inference? We are all so constituted that our pow- 
ers of appreciation very largely exceed our powers 
of origination. Ton, and I, and everybody can ap- 
preciate a thousand things that we never could 
have originated ; and what is true of each individual 
of the race cannot but be true of the race as a whole ; 
and therefore it is absurd to say that because the hu- 
man mind can appreciate what Christ has revealed,* 
therefore the human mind could have' originated it. 
Do you think so acute a man would have set aside 
the internal evidences in such a fashion, if he had 
been able fairly to deal with them? 

And now we have seen, that the life of Jesus of 
Xazareth was such as fully to correspond with His 
claim, and further, that the words which He spoke, 
as well as the way in which He spoke them, were 
also in fullest harmony — the one exhibiting a char- 
acter beyond the range of human virtue, and the 
other a wisdom beyond the range of human genius. 
Is there anything more? Is there anything else 
that such an one as He claimed to be could offer as 

*It may be said that in the department of " moral doctrines" our pow- 
ers of appreciation are not so far removed from onr powers of origina- 
tion ; bnt it must be remembered that the internal evidences are not 
confined to the superior ethics of trie doctrine of Christ, and it does not 
look very ingenuous to set them all aside by a carefully worded state- 
ment applicable only to a part of the whole, and very doubtful even in 
that limited application. 



CREDENTIALS OF THE CHEIST. 87 

a credential of His claim? There is. He might 
exhibit superhuman power. He might do things 
which were clearly beyond the ability of ordinary 
men. It will only then be in keeping with all the 
rest, and in keeping with what we should expect of 
One who came on such a mission as He professed to 
come on, if we find Him doing as well as saying 
extraordinary things. But this opens so large a 
question that we must take it up separately. This 
will give us then as our next subject: u The Mira- 
cles of the Gospel." 



LECTTJKE VI. 

MIRACLES* OF THE GOSPEL. 

It is generally felt in these days that the miracles 
recorded in the gospels, instead of being a bulwark 
to Christianity, are a burden to it. Instead of 
being evidence for it, they are accepted as evidence 
against it. And there are not a few who want no 
other evidence against Christianity than this. They 
say: " Look at the fables in these books, stories 
that nobody would believe, if they were reported as 
occurring now; we can not believe them, and, what 
is more, we can not believe the men that would 
tell such stories as these — the whole thing is fable." 
And this position is greatly strengthened by the 
idea which is so diligently fostered in much of the 

*It is important to remember that in this discussion it is not necessary 
to give a scientific definition of miracle. It is enough to know that 
Christ put forth superhuman power. It is of no consequence whether 
He used for the purpose some force of the spiritual world operating 
according to spiritual law and order, or whether He used some physical 
agency unknown to man, or whether He produced the effect by direct 
volition without the intervention of any occult agency, whether phys- 
ical or spiritual ; all that is essential is the superhuman power manifest 
in the result. It would tend very much to simplify this whole discus- 

(88) 



MIKACLES OF THE GOSPEL. 89 

current literature of the time, that this estimate of 
the gospel miracles is due to superior enlighten- 
ment. Lecky's " History of Rationalism" has done 
good service here. He shows how the belief in 
witchcraft, and in the foolish miracles of mediaeval 
times, was not really argued out of existence, but 
simply faded away, like mists before the rising sun 
of general enlightenment; and it is generally 
assumed and often stated, that the miracles of the 
gospel are destined to a like fate in due course of 
time; from which it follows, that those who now re- 
ject the miracles of the gospel are in the vanguard 
of advancing thought, which is exceedingly flatter- 
ing, of course, to those who occupy this high intel- 
lectual position. It is not at all to be wondered at, 
then, that many should be eager to step up to an 
eminence so easily attained. 

Now, for the very reason that the whole tendency 
and drift of the times is against belief in miracles 
of any kind, it becomes us to see that we do not 
merely drift with the tide, but look at the matter 
for ourselves. If the miracles of the gospels must 
be relegated to the limbo of witchcraft and mediaeval 

eion, if, instead of attempting to defend some particular notion we may 
have of the interior nature of a miracle, we would be content with the 
simple way in which Christ Himself put it when He said, " If I had not 
done among them the works that none other man did, they had not had 
sin." The fact is, that many of the arguments supposed to lie against 
miracles are dnly arguments against certain definitions of a miracle. 



90 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

nonsense, let us at all events have an intelligent 
knowledge of the reasons for so disposing of them. 
It is not enough to say, "the great nineteenth cen- 
tury says so, and therefore it must be.' 5 "We object 
to mere authority, even though it be supposed to be 
the authority of a. century; whole centuries have 
been wrong before this time. We want reason. 
And it is to reason as against prejudice that -we in- 
tend to appeal in discussing this subject. 

Let us first inquire how much of reason there is 
in the almost irresistible prejudice against miracles, 
which is so widely diffused in these days. We 
speak of it as a prejudice, not to call it a bad name, 
but simply to characterize it with philosophical ac- 
curacy. It is a prejudice, as all intelligent and 
candid skeptics will themselves admit. By this we 
mean that the miraculous facts of the gospel are not 
rejected because, on examination of the evidence 
presented, it is found insufficient; but because they 
are judged beforehand. They are represented as 
simply incredible. As we said in a former lecture, 
no intelligent skeptic with any pretension to be 
considered a historical critic, denies the credibility 
of the evangelists when they testify to ordinary oc- 
currences; but when the same persons testify as 
clearly and assuredly to any supernatural fact, even 
though it be of such a nature that they could not 



MIRACLES OF THE GOSPEL. 91 

possibly be mistaken, they are immediately dis- 
credited. Why? Obviously because the super- 
natural is prejudged. It is disbelieved, not because 
the witness is untrustworthy, but because the fact 
to which he witnesses is supernatural. It is a 
prejudice, therefore, strictly speaking. 

But a prejudice may be founded on reason. And 
this one is, to some extent. It is quite reasonable 
to ask more evidence for a wonderful and unheard- 
of occurrence, than for something which we are 
quite accustomed to see. It is right that we should 
approach the reputed miraculous with a prejudice 
against it. If I had told you that I had crossed 
Lake Geneva in a steamer last summer, I should 
have reason to be offended if you did not believe 
me. But suppose I told yon I had crossed it on 
foot, I should then have no reason to find fault with 
you for refusing me credit. We admit, then, not 
only that a prejudice may be reasonable, but that 
the prejudice against the miraculous is reasonable 
to a certain extent. 

But to what extent? This is the great question. 
And we maintain, and intend to prove, that the mi- 
racles of the gospel cannot be rejected without car- 
rying this prejudice to an unreasonable extent. 

Let us look into some of the forms which this 
prejudice takes, and inquire into their reasonable- 
ness. 



92 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

There is, first, the position taken by many that 
miracles are impossible, and that, therefore, no 
amount of evidence whatever could certify to any- 
thing supernatural. This is reasonable ground for 
atheists, and for atheists only. If there be a God 
who made us, He can surely heal a sick man without 
going through any process known to medical art. 
Our position on the subject of miracles is founded on 
belief in God ; a belief for which we have already 
given abundant and sufficient reason. It is custom- 
ary at this stage to deal with Hume's celebrated 
argument against miracles. But as this has been so 
often answered, and as John Stuart Mill himself is 
one of those who show its invalidity on principles 
of Theism, ("Essays on Keligion:" H. Holt & Co., 
p. 232,) we need not take up time with it. 

Again, there are those who say that miracles are 
to be utterly discredited, because they are an inter- 
ference with the order of nature. But what if it be 
rather an interference with disorder? Was it not 
more orderly, in the highest sense of the term, that 
a blind man should receive sight, than that he should 
remain blind? The order of nature, be it remem- 
bered, is not the only order in the universe. There 
is a spiritual order to which we spiritual beings be- 
long. As a rule, the spiritual order requires that 
the natural order be regular, uniform, invariable. 



MIKACLES OF THE GOSPEL. 93 

If it were not, there could be no science, and there 
could be no guarantee for any enterprise in which 
free agents might embark. But what if, on occa- 
sion, the spiritual order demanded some variation 
from the customary order of nature? The variation 
would not be a variation of disorder in that case, 
but of higher order. This was precisely the case 
with regard to the miracles of the gospels. It will 
be found, upon examination, that the miracles said 
to have been wrought by Christ were never arbi- 
trary, but always in obedience to some higher law. 
I think it was Jean Paul Richter who said: "Mira- 
cles on earth are nature in heaven." 

Another reason for summarily dismissing all 
miracles whatever is, that to admit a miracle at all 
is to dishonor God, as if His universe needed mend- 
ing. To this some have replied by referring to such 
a machine as Babbage's calculator, for the purpose 
of showing that, though at given times numbers 
appear out of all previous order, it does not follow 
that everything was not arranged beforehand, the 
exceptions as well as the regularities; and so God 
may have had the exceptional miracles in His en- 
tire plan as well as all that was manifestly regular 
and orderly. But we prefer a shorter and more di- 
rect answer, viz., this: That though the universe 
may need no mendings we men do. Do we not? 



94 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

Is there no such thing as vice or crime? Do you 
believe in sin, as an altogether proper and orderly 
thing? Is there no mending needed there? If you 
are perfectly satisfied with things as they are, with 
State street on a Saturday night for example, then 
you may say that there is no call for divine inter- 
ference, and no need of divine help. But if you 
think that men do need mending, and that possibly 
some of us respectable people would be the better 
for some mending too, then do not urge this as a 
reason for putting out of court, without a hearing, 
those works of healing which the Christ of God 
wrought for poor, sinning, suffering man. 

"We come now to the fourth and most prevalent 
reason for summarily dismissing the miracles of 
the gospel. It is because all our experience is 
against them. Now this may be and ought to be a 
reason for special care in considering the question, 
but it is no reason for dismissing it without a hear- 
ing. When a child brought up in the tropics is 
first told of the beautiful white crystals that fall 
from the heavens in northern climes, it is quite 
reasonable that he should be skeptical about it. But 
when the difference of the conditions is explained, 
not only is the original improbability removed, but 
the way is prepared for seeing that it may be, nay, 
that it must be so. And in the same way, when we 



MIRACLES OF THE GOSPEL. 95 

hear of miracles occurring as mere prodigies, with- 
out any reason for expecting them, we ought to be 
extremely skeptical. Bat if it can be shown that 
at any time in the world's history there was occasion 
for them and reason to expect them, the way is 
prepared for at least considering, whether the state- 
ments of those who affirm the very miracles which 
reason would lead us to expect at such a time, may 
not be true. 

We fully admit that a miracle is an improbable 
thing in itself. This can not be denied. If it were 
not improbable, it would not be a miracle at all. 
But that which is improbable in itself may lose very 
much or all of its improbability by its attendant 
circumstances. The improbability of miracles is 
often dealt with as if it were a constant quantity. 
The gospel miracles are cast into one common heap 
with all sorts of mediaeval rubbish, and then they 
are all set aside as alike improbable and unworthy 
of consideration. Is that honest ? Is it reasonable ? 

The honest and reasonable way to do is, fairly to 
estimate the probability or improbability attaching 
to the gospel miracles, and then to deal with the 
subject on its merits or demerits, as the case may 
be. "We have already admitted that improbability 
is a reasonable ground for a certain degree of sus- 
picion and incredulity. But it is manifestly unfair 



96 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

to take the improbability attaching to one thing — 
a mediaeval miracle, for instance — and make it the 
measure of suspicion with which we regard another 
thing — a miracle of Christ, for example. 

We have said that what is improbable in it- 
self may lose much, or even all, of its improbability 
by attending circumstances. That which is violent- 
ly improbable to a limited view of the facts of the 
case, as when an inhabitant of the tropics disbe- 
lieves in snow, may be quite probable to wider ac- 
quaintance with the facts, as when the same person 
learns something of the different conditions of the 
temperate and frigid zones. Now we main tain that, 
not only do the circumstances connected with the 
gospel miracles reduce the improbability which 
they have in themselves, but they actually turn the 
scale on the other side. Let us endeavor to make 
this plain. 

We have seen (Lecture IY) that it was highly 
probable that God should give to man a revelation 
in addition to that which nature affords, that it was 
in the highest degree probable that such revelation 
should be given through the medium of a human life; 
and further, that it was surely to be expected, that 
any one sent on such a mission should exhibit, as 
credentials of his mission, superhuman excellence of 
character, superhuman wisdom, and superhuman 



MIRACLES OF THE GOSPEL. 97 

power. And now, when we find One — the only- 
one in all history who answers to these conditions 
— One who, in the first place, claims to come in the 
name of God, and then accredits this claim by just 
the character and the teaching we should expect, 
is it, I ask, unreasonable to think that such an One 
as He should do things that no one else can do? 
On the contrary, it would be unreasonable to sup- 
pose that he should not. Why, then, in the name 
of reason, should the miracles of the gospel be con- 
sidered as evidence against it? If such an one as 
I, whom you know to be no better or greater than 
other men, were to claim to heal the sick by a word, 
it would be an incredible claim, and it would 
be quite proper to dismiss it without any consid- 
eration. But is it not entirely different when He 
who makes the claim is One who shows Himself 
to be superhuman in all other respects, and espec- 
ially since He is One who claims to bring a revela- 
tion from heaven, which, according to one of the 
greatest infidels of modern times (Mill on " Revela- 
tion," p. 4), u cannot be proved divine, . . . un- 
less by the exhibition of supernatural facts?" 
But is it not a most contradictory position to take 
— first, to say that a revelation cannot be proved 
divine except by the exhibition of supernatural 
facts, and then to say that the exhibition of super- 
7 



98 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

natural facts is the very thing that kills it? Yet 
that is continually done by the infidelity of the 
day. 

Suppose, now, for a moment, that, after Jesus of 
Nazareth had announced Himself as the Christ, a 
poor leper had come running up to Him with the 
request, " Lord, if Thou w T ilt, Thou canst make me 
clean;" and, instead of saying as our gospels repre- 
sent, " I will, be thou clean," He had said, " I can 
do nothing to help you," w T ould it not have discred- 
ited His mission? Would it not have been reason- 
able to argue thus: if He cannot help a leper 
out of his leprosy, what reason have w T e for sup- 
posing that He can help a sinner out of his sin? 
Yet such is the unreasonableness of modern infi- 
delity, that He is actually discredited because He is 
reported to have done the very thing which it would 
have discredited Him not to have done. 

It is abundantly evident, then, that reason de- 
mands a fair hearing for the miracles recorded in 
the gospels. And that is all we ask. Give them a 
fair hearing, and there can be only one result, as 
we shall presently see. And herein modern infi- 
delity shows its wisdom in taking its stand on the 
threshold, putting the whole case out of court, and 
refusing to consider it on its merits. If the case of 
the gospel miracles had been a weak one, it would 



MIRACLES OF THE GOSPEL. 99 

not have been necessary to resort to so many 
learned arguments to prove that the idea of mira- 
cles ought not to be entertained at all. If the evi- 
dence had not been of a very superior kind, it would 
not have been necessary for the acutestof the oppo- 
sition to maintain so earnestly, that miracles are so 
improbable that no amount of evidence should be 
accepted as sufficient. 

In the first place it can be shown, on examina- 
tion of the miracles, that the hypothesis of the wit- 
nesses being mistaken is quite out of the question. 
As we have said, we could have seen room for mis- 
take in such a miracle as the changing of water 
into wine, if it had stood alone, but the great ma- 
jority of the gospel miracles are not of that descrip- 
tion. Attempts have been made to show how the 
reports might have been due to similar mistakes 
all through, but they have utterly failed, as the 
great German infidel Strauss has conclusively shown, 
and certainly he ought to be good authority on that 
subject. 

And when the same Strauss, acknowledging the 
defeat of rationalism in one quarter, runs up the 
standard in another, by propounding and advocat- 
ing his famous mythical theory, according to which 
the reports of the first witnesses have been cum- 
bered up with fables that in the course of years 



100 THE FOUNDATIONS, 

have grown up around the original narrative; not 
only is all historical evidence against it, but the 
miracles themselves refute it. An examination of 
them shows that, instead of being excrescences 
which have been added to the original history, they 
are all of a piece with it, exhibiting the same eleva- 
tion of character and the same wealth of instruction 
which the discourses do. If the miracles had been 
spurious and the discourses genuine, would not the 
difference between the two have been apparent ? 
Can you see it ? Read Trench on the Parables, and 
then read the same author on the Miracles, and see 
if it be not evident, first, that the miracles are as full 
of meaning as the parables, and, next, that they are 
full of the same meaning as the parables. And 
then, after you have read and studied the miracles 
of the gospel, take a look at the really fabulous mir- 
acles, such as are found in " the Gospel of the In- 
fancy" for instance, or the mediaeval miracles, or 
the wonders of modern spiritualism; and you will 
see that the genuine are as different from the spur- 
ious as day is from night. The miracles of the 
gospel are most appropriately spoken of by Christ 
and by the evangelists as " signs of the kingdom of 
heaven," and certainly they do bear the sign man- 
ual of heaven upon them; whereas the miracles 
with which in ignorance they are often confounded 



MIKACLES OF THE GOSPEL. 101 

bear the sign manual of folly and fanaticism, mira- 
cles of childish petulance in the Gospel of the In- 
fancy, winking Madonnas of the middle ages, table- 
turning and spirit-rappings in modern times. It is 
only by refusing to look at the gospel miracles that 
the contrast can be missed. It is apparent, even on 
slight examination ; and as it was with the character 
of Christ, and as it was with the words of Christ, 
so here, the evidence of genuineness and heavenli- 
ness grows on you more and more, the more you 
study the subject. 

And remember in this connection, that it is quite 
enough for the purpose to show that the great ma- 
jority of the miracles of the gospel have the sign- 
manual of heaven upon them ; for surely it need 
not be wondered at, if among the many there should 
be some, the meaning of which is not so readily 
apparent; just as there are so many things in Na- 
ture, the meaning of which it is hard to see. The 
great majority are works of healing, than which 
nothing could have been more appropriate. And 
if you have greater difficulty in understanding such 
a miracle as the multiplying of the loaves and 
fishes, consider how much light is thrown upon it 
by the discourse that immediately follows it. And 
if you are told, that it would have been much 
grander to have simply pointed the multitude to 



102 THE FOUNDATION'S. 

the harvests whitening on the fields, and reminded 
them of the small quantity of seed from which they 
sprang, as an evidence of what great things God 
could do, remember that the very value of the In- 
carnation, as a revelation, was its bringing into small 
compass the tokens of the divine agency, so that the 
connection between them could be readily seen; and 
in the same way, the miracle of the multiplication 
of the loaves was just the bringing into small com- 
pass and exhibiting, so that the multitude could 
not fail to see it, the very marvel which the great 
God is working in nature every year, when from a 
few small seeds He evolves by natural agencies those 
great harvests which cover the fields of autumn 
with their golden robe. The same considerations 
are clearly applicable to the changing of the 
water into wine. The God of nature was doing it 
every year in the vineyards with which every hill- 
side was clothed; but the process was so slow, that 
the dull mind could not readily follow it, till as in 
a picture the great Kevealer set it before them. 
But we cannot take up the miracles in detail. 
Enough to say, that the vast majority of the miracles 
of the gospel, if not the whole of them, bear on 
themselves the sign manual of heaven, and are evi- 
dently, both on literary and on spiritual grounds, 
of a piece with the Life and Words; and, therefore, 



MIRACLES OF THE GOSPEL. 103 

we can not reasonably suppose them to be the ex- 
crescences of fable pieced on to the confessedly 
heavenly life and words. And then, beside all, it 
is as certain as any fact in history that Christ 
claimed to work miracles; so that you have not 
only to explain the miracles away, but yon have to 
explain the claim away, before you can account for 
the facts of the case in any other way than on the 
supposition that the miracles were actually wrought. 

And now it might be desirable to take some 
single miracle, and look more directly at the evi- 
dence by which it is sustained. For this purpose 
we shall take the Resurrection, as being the crown- 
ing miracle of all, for our next subject of study. 

Meantime, we are sure that enough has been said 
to show, that it is certainly not superior enlighten- 
ment which condemns Christianity as untrue, 
because He who lived as never man lived, and spake 
as never man spake, is also said to have done the 
works that never man did. 



LECTUKE VII. 



THE BESUERECTIOISr. 



So far, we have been considering the miracles of 
the Gospel in a general way; and we have found 
that they come before ns in such a manner as to 
merit a candid and unprejudiced hearing. While 
fully admitting the improbability of isolated mar- 
vels or of wonderful stories connected with names 
entitled to no especial consideration, we contend 
that it is entirely different with the deeds of mercy 
attributed to Jesus of Nazareth, — that it is not only 
not improbable, but in the highest degree to be ex- 
pected, that such an One as He claimed to be, 
especially since His claim is so fully borne out by the 
ti^nscendent excellence of His character and unap- 
proachable wisdom of His teaching, should exhibit 
superhuman powers in action as well as in word. 
Therefore, we ought by all means to approach the 
evidence which is furnished for the miracles in de- 
tail, without that overwhelming prejudice against it 
which would be justifiable, if the person in whose 

(104) 



THE KESUKRECTION. 105 

favor it was adduced was either a weak or wicked, 
or even a quite ordinary man. We ask no preju- 
dice in favor of the claim; but we do think it is but 
right that prejudice against it should be dismissed. 
Having time only to take up one of the miracles, 
we >choose the Resurrection, chiefly because it is 
universally accepted as the seal of all the rest. 
Once believe that Jesus rose from the dead Himself, 
and it will not be hard to believe that He did almost 
any other wonderful thing. "We might, indeed, 
conceive of a person who was thoroughly convinced 
of the resurrection, hesitating or suspending his 
judgment in relation to one or two of the miracles 
recorded in the Gospels, — the cursing of the fig- 
tree, for instance, or the destruction of the swine 
in the region of Gadara; but the great mass of the 
miracles, the healing of the sick, giving sight to 
the blind, hearing to the deaf, strength to the pal- 
sied, and even life to the dead, w T ould seem so nat- 
ural on the part of One who was manifestly the 
conqueror of death, as to present no difficulty at all. 
Connected with its importance, there is another 
advantage in singling out the resurrection. Inas- 
much as it is felt to be the citadel, it has been more 
desperately assailed than any other. Ingenuity has 
exhausted itself in efforts to undermine its evidences; 
and accordingly here, if anywhere, we know that 



106 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

the very worst that can be said against us has been 
said. 

At the outset we are confronted with the unques- 
tionable, fact of the unanimous testimony of the 
Apostles and early Christians. There was no divis- 
ion among the Christians in this regard. They all 
united in this testimony, and some of them main- 
tained it through the seyerest persecution, and at 
last sealed it with their blood. It may be well to 
notice at this stage the unfair use that is sometimes 
made of the doubts which many of the disciples 
had at the first. Remarking on the statement in 
Matt, xxviii, IT, that " some doubted," a recent 
lecturer before the " Philosophical Society " is re- 
ported to have said : c; AVho and how many doubted ? 
What did they doubt? Why did they doubt? If 
the chosen disciples doubted what they saw with 
their own eyes, as stated by this writer, may we 
not be pardoned for doubting?" In answer to the 
question, u "Why did they doubt?" we have only 
to say, that it was because they were not the credu- 
lous people that the same critic, in another part of 
his lecture, represents them as being. They doubted 
at first, as any reasonable being would, until he 
had examined the evidence. These doubts quali- 
fied them all the better for examining the evidence 
thoroughly. And it was only after the evidence 



THE RESUERECTION". 107 

was such as to overcome all their doubts, that they 
yielded and believed. Will any one pretend to say 
that they continued doubters? All the disciples 
were doubters at the first. But they were all con- 
vinced in the end. And the very fact that it was 
so hard to convince them, when they were first con- 
fronted with so unexpected a thing as the Resurrec- 
tion, gives largely increased value to their unwaver- 
ing certainty ever afterwards, through labors, and 
privations, and sufferings, and death itself. We 
have, then, the unanimous testimony of all the 
Apostles and early Christians, confirmed by the 
knowledge that their convictions were reached only 
after serious and, on the part of some more skepti- 
cal ones, even obstinate doubts and questionings. 

Now manifestly these people either believed what 
they said or they did not. Formerly the infidel 
position was that they did not, that they were a set 
of impostors and liars who manufactured these 
stories, and, knowing them to be false, palmed them 
off upon the world. But no intelligent infidel holds 
that position now. It was found impossible to 
maintain it, and so it was abandoned. We need 
not, then, take up time in arguing a point which 
is now so universally conceded. Only let us 
remember that this idea of imposture and false- 
hood is given up and dismissed, so that it can- 



108 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

not be taken up again as a refuge. "When once 
the idea of intentional falsehood is dismissed, every- 
thing that is said on the one side or the other must 
of course be consistent with the admitted fact, that 
these men believed themselves what they said. 

The hypothesis of fraud being excluded, only two 
distinct suppositions remain^ — viz.: reality and 
imagination. If not a fraud, the Resurrection must 
have been either a fact or a fancy. We are trying, 
if we can, to get away from the fact of it. Let us, 
then, try whether fancy will account for it. Could 
it have been a hallucination? 

To test this supposition, consider, first, how many 
must have been under the same hallucination. One 
person may think he sees something, while what he 
sees is only in his imagination. Bat is it usual to 
find two persons whose hallucinations shall so ex- 
actly correspond that their testimony will agree as 
to what they saw? Did you ever hear of twelve 
persons that were so deceived by their senses all at 
the same time and exactly in the same manner? 
And yet there must have been far more than twelve 
so deluded, for there were the women besides, and 
the other disciples, of whom there were 120 in Jeru- 
salem, to say nothing of the 500 (probably of the 
Galilean disciples) to whom the Apostle Paul re- 
fers in his letter to the Corinthians. 



THE RESURRECTION. 109 

Consider next what sort of people they were. 
We have the writings of some of them, and we 
have such information about others as gives us some 
insight into their character. Read Matthew's Gos- 
pel, and see if you think him a visionary kind of 
man. Study the characters of Peter, James, John, 
and Thomas, and see if you think them just the 
kind of people to surrender themselves to a foolish 
delusion. 

Consider next in what state of mind they were. 
"Were they expecting a resurrection? Not one of 
them. Even the faithful women did not expect it. 
And as for the Twelve, they had all forsaken Him 
and fled when He was crucified, and when they talk- 
ed to one another about Him, it was in this wise: 
" We trusted that it had been He that should have 
redeemed Israel, but" — (He is dead and buried, and 
it is all over.) Evidently not one of them was in 
a state of mind favorable to hallucination. 

Consider, finally, what must have been the extent 
of the hallucination, and you will find that it would 
be almost incredible that even a single person, how- 
ever visionary and however wrought up with ex- 
pectation, should be the subject of it. For it was 
not only a single sight of Him, or a single inter- 
view. There was repeated intercourse for the space 
of forty days. During that time every conceivable 



110 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

confirmation was given. They saw Him, they 
heard Him, they touched Him, they walked with 
Him, they talked with Him, they ate with Him, 
they reported and recorded the verj- words He said ; 
and these words are just as much marked by 
heavenly wisdom and grace as His recorded words 
before His death. Can you conceive of any fuller 
evidence that could have been given of the fact of 
His resurrection ? 

Eemember here, that it will not do to say we have 
only their own statements for all this, for that is 
to take refuge in the exploded supposition of fraud. 
It is a very common thing for an infidel to give up 
a supposition like this when argued out of it, and 
then quietly resort to it again, when pressed in 
another quarter. Consider, then, I say, not only 
the number of persons, and the kind of persons, and 
the state of mind in which they were at the time, 
but the extraordinary extent of the hallucination, 
and then say, if it does not require tenfold more 
credulity to believe in the theory of hallucination 
than in the fact of the resurrection. If we had had 
only the testimony of Mary, we might have sup- 
posed it was only the gardener after all. Or, if a 
few of them had only professed to have seen Him 
once, there might have been room for mistake. But 
when they not only saw Him, but conversed with 



THE RESURRECTION. Ill 

Him, and ate with Him, and verified His identity 
when doubts came over them, the conviction grows 
upon you, that they could not possibly have been 
all mistaken every time — in the upper chamber, on 
the road, at the table, by the side of the lake, in 
broad daylight — for the space of forty days. The 
more you examine, the more you will see how vain 
it is to attempt to explain the facts of the case by 
hallucination. 

Does this conclude the case for the Resurrection? 
It could not have been fraud; it could not have been 
fancy; must it not then have been fact? It would 
seem so. And yet, in all fairness, it must be con- 
ceded that modern infidelity does not allow these 
three to include all supposable cases. A fourth 
alternative has been devised, which is neither fraud, 
nor fact, nor fancy; but a mixture of fact and fancy, 
with perhaps a little grain of fraud in it to help its 
plausibility. "We refer to the mythical theory. 
"We have already seen reasons for rejecting it, as 
applied to the miracles in general. But it may be 
well also to consider how it applies to the resurrec- 
tion in particular. 

Let us first get a clear conception of how it dif- 
fers from the disproved theories of fraud and of 
fancy. The idea is this, that those who were con- 
versant w T ith the original facts, without any inten- 



112 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

tion of deceiving, simply exaggerated them a little, 
as enthusiastic disciples are likely to do. And 
when the story came to be told to the next genera- 
tion, it would be considerably larger than it 
was at first; and so on, and on, till in a perfectly 
natural way, without any intentional fraud, but 
simply by the process of quite natural development, 
all the wonders of the resurrection story came 
to the front. Now, it is true that wonderful stories 
have developed in this way in the early ages of the 
world, especially in the infancy of nations, and in 
prehistoric times. Every one knows, of course, 
that the Jewish nation was not by any means in its 
infancy, that the times were not prehistoric, and 
that the conditions in general were not favorable to 
the growth of myths, least of all of such a myth as 
the resurrection, seeing that one of the two great 
parties who alternately held the reins of power (the 
Sadducees, I mean) had as a principal part of their 
" platform" the denial of any resurrection, and 
would, of course, see to it that any such myth in 
the process of formation was promptly exploded. 
But leaving these considerations, and many others, 
let me simply call your attention to one circum- 
stance which renders the mythical explanation of 
the resurrection story incredible, which absolutely 
proves that it did not grow up by gradual accre- 



THE PvESUKEECTIOJS". 113 

tions, from generation to generation, but was 
firmly believed and fully taught by Christian 
teachers while many of the original witnesses 
were still living. "When first the mythical the- 
ory was propounded, the attempt was made to 
push the Gospels far down into the second century, 
so as to leave a considerable number of intervening 
generations, and afford time for the myths to 
grow. These attempts have failed. But, even 
apart from the question as to the precise date of the 
Gospels, we have conclusive proof that the fact of 
the resurrection was believed, and asserted, and in- 
corporated into the Christian doctrine, while yet 
many of the original witnesses were still alive. The 
First Epistle to the Corinthians is one, the genuine- 
ness and antiquity of which even the most de- 
structive of the literary critics of Germany have not 
been able to doubt. It is as certain as anything of 
the kind could be that Paul was the author of it, 
and that it was written at no longer interval from 
the death of Christ than twenty to twenty-five years. 
Now, with the knowledge of this fact, read the fif- 
teenth chapter of the Epistle, — that magnificent 
passage which is so familiar to our ears in the 
funeral services of all the churches. Now, we know 
that John was living at that time, and others of the 
original witnesses. In fact the Apostle himself aB- 
8 



114 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

serts that the greater part of them were living still. 
Does not this utterly explode the mythical theory 
so far as the resurrection is concerned? If the 
original witnesses were still alive, how was it 
possible for such an extraordinary story to 
have grown up in the gradual and imperceptible 
way which the mythical theory supposes? Is it not 
evident that the very existence of such a story un- 
contradicted, while several of the original witnesses 
were still alive and in frequent communication with 
so prominent a teacher of it as the Apostle Paul, 
proves that w r e must dismiss this mythical idea 
which so conveniently mixes fact and fancy, as 
another of the many vain attempts to explain away 
the evidence of the Resurrection? We might have 
made the case a great deal stronger by taking the 
evidence which the "Acts of the Apostles" fur- 
nishes, that the Resurrection was the main substance 
of apostolic teaching from the day of Pentecost on- 
ward, but we preferred to take the epistle for the 
reason above given, that the most destructive of the 
critics have not been able to cast the slightest doubt 
on its antiquity or genuineness, while they have 
labored hard, though we believe quite unsuccess- 
fully, to do this for the Acts of the Apostles. 

We thus find that the story of the resurrection 
cannot be resolved into fraud, nor into fancy> nor 



THE KESURKECTION. 115 

into that ingenious mixture of the different ele- 
ments which enter into the mythical theory. What 
else, then, can it be but fact ? 

But are there not difficulties on this supposition, 
too ? It is alleged that there are. There is, first 
and mainly, the improbability of the thing. This 
we have dealt with already, and we have one word 
more to say about it before we are done. The other 
is, the alleged discrepancies in the statements of the 
different witnesses. It is quite evident that there 
is not time to go into these in detail. Suffice it to 
say, that they are just such variations as are always 
expected when independent witnesses give separate 
accounts, without any attempt to bring them into 
verbal harmony. Each of the witnesses gives a very 
brief account of the occurrences of forty days, and, 
of course, one leaves out what another puts in, 
one mentions a circumstance that struck him, 
another refers to quite different particulars that 
impressed themselves on his mind, and so on. But 
in no case has any clear contradiction been estab- 
lished. 

Perhaps the most satisfactory way of dealing with 
this matter in a sentence, is to refer to the fact, 
which many may not know, that the highest auth- 
ority on evidence, perhaps, that ever lived, has 
thoroughly sifted this evidence on the same prin. 



116 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

ciples as are applied in courts of law, and come to 
the decided conclusion that it is impossible by any 
justifiable process of legal criticism to invalidate 
these testimonies. I refer to Greenleaf's work, 
entitled "The Testimony of the Evangelists Exam- 
ined by the Rules, of Evidence Administered in 
Courts of Justice." !Now, this is no other than the 
famous Greenleaf, whose work on Evidence has been 
a standard ever since it was issued, not only in 
America, but on the other side of the Atlantic. 
The London Law Journal, referring to Greenleaf s 
work, says : " Upon the existing law of evidence 
more light has shone from the New World than 
from all the lawyers who adorn the courts of 
Europe." And the North American Review 
spoke of him before his death as u an able and pro- 
found lawyer, — a man who has grown grey in the 
halls of justice and the schools of jurisprudence, — 
a writer of the highest authority on legal subjects, 
whose life has been spent in weighing testimony 
and sifting evidence, and whose published opinions 
on the rules of evidence are received as authori- 
tative in all the English and American tribunals." 
It is doubtful, in fact, if there ever lived a man 
better qualified for sifting evidence. "Well, this 
man bent his energies to the sifting of the testi- 
mony of the evangelists all through the Gospels, 



THE EESURRECTION. 117 

and especially their testimony in relation to the 
trial and death and resurrection of Jesus, and the 
result will appear from the following quotation : 
"Let the witnesses," he says, " be compared with 
themselves, with each other, and with surrounding 
facts and circumstances ; and let their testimony 
be sifted as if it were given in a court of justice on 
the side of the adverse party, the witnesses being 
subjected to a rigorous cross examination. The re- 
sult, it is confidently believed, will be an undoubt- 
ing conviction of their integrity, ability, and truth. 
In the course of such an examination the undesign- 
ed coincidences will multiply upon us at every step 
in our progress; the probability of the veracity of 
the witnesses and of the reality of the occurrences 
which they relate will increase until it acquires, for 
all practical purposes, the value and force of demon- 
stration." 

The more you examine it fairly, the more you will 
be convinced that the evidence is so overwhelming 
that you cannot get away from it without the most 
desperate expedients. When, in the olden time, 
a far-off claimant for a throne would make gfood his 
illegal pretensions, he must wade through seas of 
blood to it, he must put to death the heir apparent 
and the heir presumptive, and as many others as 
lay between him and the coveted possession. Simi- 



118 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

lar is the task which modern infidelity has to per- 
form before it can erect its usurping throne on the 
empty grave of Jesus. It must make havoc of all 
the four Gospels, reducing them mainly to a tissue 
of lies. It must destroy the historic credibility of 
the Acts of the Apostles. It must get rid in some 
fashion of the first epistle to the Corinthians. It 
must make havoc of every scrap of writing that re- 
mains from the first century, which refers to the 
Resurrection. It must despoil the character of 
Matthew and Mark, Luke and John, Paul and 
Peter. It must crucify again the Lord Himself, 
for again and again while He was alive He said 
that He would rise again. It must dispose even 
of Christianity itself, with its fifty-two commem- 
orations of the Resurrection every year, and show 
how it was possible that such an institution was 
founded on a lie. It must, in fact, murder history, 
and murder character, and murder truth. And 
why? All because the great nineteenth century is 
supposed to have settled unalterably that it is a 
thing incredible that God should raise the dead. 
But may we not, with all due respect even to so 
great an abstraction as the nineteenth century, 
ask again the old question: "Why should it be 
thought a thing incredible that God should raise 
the dead?" What a wonderful resurrection does 



THE KESUKKECTIOtf. 119 

He work every year in those very weeks that en- 
circle the glad Easter day! He makes the dead 
trees and dead flowers to live again, and shall it be 
said that He cannot raise to life a dead man ? True 
it is that we do not see men raised from the dead 
nowadays; but neither do we see men like Jesus 
the Christ nowadays. If he had been only an ordi- 
nary man, it would have seemed well-nigh incredi- 
ble that God should raise him from the dead. 
"But He was no ordinary man. And when you think 
what sort of a man He was, the probability is shift- 
ed to the other side. It was not a -mere miracle. 
When profoundly looked at, it was no marvel at all. 
The Apostle Peter puts it in the right light in his 
first sermon after Pentecost: "Whom God hath 
raised up, having loosed the bands of death, because 
it was not possible that he should be holden of it." 
O my friends, if we would only acquaint ourselves 
with Jesus Christ; if we would drink in His words; 
if we would enter into sympathy w T ith the plan and 
purpose and tenor of His life, if we would gaze on 
the beauty of His face and fill our hearts with the 
admiration which is due to the immortal loveliness 
of His character; if we would get really and truly 
acquainted with Him, instead of thinking it a thing 
incredible that God should raise Him from the 
dead, — we should think it a thing incredible that 



120 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

God should not do it. "We should enter into the 
true and deep philosophy of the Apostle when he 
said, " God raised Him, because it was not possible 
that such an one as He should be holden of death." 
" Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord 
Jesus Christ," who has not mocked us with a myth 
when our beloved dead lie cold and beautiful be- 
neath our anguished gaze, but, "who, according to 
His abundant mercy, hath begotten us again unto a 
lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from 
the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and unde- 
filed, and that fadeth not away." 



THIRD PAET. 



THE COMPLETED FOUNDATION, 

Co* in (ffifjttet, iflafce Unoton tog 
tf>e j£pmt. 



LECTUKE VIII. 

REVELATION BY THE SPIEIT. 

Our feet are now firmly planted on " the Rock of 
Ages," which rests securely on the great underlying 
rock-system of the Divine Existence. We may 
thankfully accept, as a firm foundation on which to 
build, the revelation of God in Christ, now fully certi- 
fied to us. We have seen, first, that it was in the 
highest degree probable that such a revelation as was 
suited to our wants should be given; next, that the 
best conceivable medium for giving it was a human 
life, and finally that the Lord Jesus Christ, who 
claimed to bring just such a revelation, gave every 
credential of his claim that a reasonable man could 
desire, exhibiting superhuman excellence of charac- 
ter, superhuman wisdom, and superhuman power, 
and that, to crown all, the seal of God was put 
upon the earthly life of this " Holy One of Israel," 
by His resurrection from the dead. Thus is fully 
justified the claim of Jesus of Nazareth to be the 
Christ of God, the Savior of the world. 

(123) 



124 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

Let us pause a moment at this point, and see how 
far we have reached without the slightest use of the 
doctrine of the inspiration of the Scriptures, and, in 
fact, without using even as common history any- 
other books than the four Gospels, and the First 
Epistle to the Corinthians. We have already a 
sufficient basis for belief of the Gospel, belief, 
that is, of the great fact, that "God so loved 
the world that He gave His only begotten Son," 
that "God was in Christ, reconciling the world 
unto Himself." There is much of vast importance 
which we have not reached yet, and even something 
essential to the gospel in its application to human- 
ity at large, as we shall presently see; but the great 
facts of the gospel, historically considered, are fixed 
on a sure basis before we make any use of the Bible 
as such, and before we even open the Old Testament 
at all. And yet there are those who will try to 
make everything stand or fall, with our ability to 
verify the accuracy of some difficult or obscure pas- 
sage or passages in some of the many books of the 
Old Testament — books that have come down to us 
from such hoar antiquity that it seems almost a mir- 
acle we have them at all! 

Remembering, then, how much is made sure be- 
fore we enter upon its consideration, let us pass to 
the third part of our general subject. It is the 



REVELATION BY THE SPIRIT. 125 

revelation of God in Christ iy the Holy Spirit. 
And first let us see the necessity for it. 

Let us here recall what has been said (Lect. TV) as 
to the necessary conditions of God's revealing Him- 
self to man. We found self-limitation to be one of 
them. And accordingly, while a human life was 
unquestionably the best conceivable medium of a 
divine revelation, it of necessity involved limita- 
tions — such limitations in particular as are im- 
posed by space and time. The revelation must be 
given within a limited time in the world's history, 
and within a limited space on the world's surface. 
There are those who have made this a ground of 
objection to Christianity; but a moment's thought 
would have shown them, that these limitations of 
which they complain were necessities arising from 
the nature of the case. 

But while these limitations were unavoidable 
from the nature of the case, we might reasonably 
inquire whether there might not be any way of 
overcoming the disadvantage arising from them, so 
that those, who had no opportunity of holding per- 
sonal intercourse with the Christ of God, might 
have their wants provided for. And to such an in- 
quiry there is a perfectly satisfactory answer. 
"While the- man Christ Jesus in His earthly life 
was subject to the usual limitations of humanity, 



126 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

in time and space, the Divine Spirit in communion 
with whom He lived, in whose name He spoke, 
and by whose power He did His wonderful works 
of love and mercy, was not so limited ; and herein 
lies the possibility of such an extension of the rev- 
elation as is suitable to meet the wants of the whole 
race. We do not here profess to enter into the dif- 
ficult subject of the Trinity, or to state, far less ex- 
plain, the interior nature of the Deity. Let trans- 
cendental theology deal with that subject if it can; 
but it does not belong to the humbler and much 
easier department of the Christian evidences. And 
accordingly we here go no further than the safe 
statement, that in the freedom of the divine Spirit 
from the human limitations which attached to the 
man Christ Jesus, lies the possibility of such an ex- 
tension of the revelation as shall meet the wants of 
the whole world. 

So much for possibility; let us now inquire what 
the probabilities of the case may be. There is one 
quite simple and natural way in which the benefits 
of the revelation, given in the life of the man Christ 
Jesus, might have been extended beyond the time 
and the country to which He belonged. I refer to 
the method of publication through the ordinary 
channels. The extension of His influence beyond 
the sphere of His life might have been left entirely, 



REVELATION BY THE SPIRIT. 127 

as in the case of ordinary men, to the spontaneous 
efforts of those who thought His life and sayings 
worth preserving. "Well, suppose for a moment we 
had nothing more than this; that this was all that 
could be said of the Gospels and Acts and Epistles, 
that they were the honest attempts of men who 
had been powerfully influenced, by the life and 
words of Jesus, to give the benefit of them to the 
world. Would that prove that these books were 
of little or no value? Consider what good oppor- 
tunity we should have, even in that case, of becom- 
ing truly and savingly acquainted with the Lord 
Jesus. We have, first, four biographies of Him, 
written by men who had exceptionally good oppor- 
tunities of becoming acquainted with the facts of 
the case. "We have a large number of His sayings 
and discourses, evidently recorded and preserved 
with the greatest care. We have an account of the 
influence which His life and teachings had upon 
such men as Peter, John, and Paul. And we have 
the teachings of those men when they attempted to 
set forth, each in his own way and from his own 
point of view, the doctrines of their Master. Is all 
this of little value? We contend not only that 
it is of unspeakable value, but that it is enough to 
give a solid basis for a truly Christian faith and life. 
There would, indeed, be serious disadvantages, 



128 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

and in particular this: that those who take this po- 
sition could never certainly know how much the 
original teaching of the Lord Himself had been 
colored by the views of His reporters. But though 
such persons could never take an isolated state- 
ment as absolute proof of anything, and must ever 
be more or less in the dark as to the whole amount 
of the divine teaching, yet if they are honest (and 
we are presuming them to be so), they may receive 
and believe enough to give them perfect confidence 
in the Lord Jesus Christ as a divine teacher and 
Savior. I say they may, not that they will. The 
tendency of what are called loose views of inspiration 
is in the direction of neglect and general unbelief 
and indifference; but this is not a necessary ten- 
dency. We believe not only that there may be, 
but that there are, not a few who do not believe in 
plenary inspiration, and yet have a more living and 
earnest faith in Christ — the Christ of the Gospels, 
the Acts, the Epistles and Revelation — and a great- 
er devotion to Him and to His cause, than a large 
number of people who are quite orthodox in their 
belief. Far be it from us, then, to denounce as in- 
fidels those who are hindered by difficulties from 
accepting what we may regard as the truth on the 
subject of inspiration, so long as they receive the 
testimony of the evangelists and apostles so far as 



REVELATION BY THE SPIRIT, 129 

to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and do their 
best to follow in the way which He points out to 
them as the way of life. And for the same reason 
we ought not to allow the genuine infidel, or the 
unwise and tm scriptural apologist, to treat the 
claims of Christ and of Christianity as identical 
with the question of the literal and verbal infalli- 
bility of all the books which are bound together in 
covers, on which the name " Holy Bible," however 
appropriately, is inscribed. 

But, while we admit that Christianity can well 
stand its ground and maintain its claim on the alle- 
giance of men, apart from the doctrine of special 
inspiration, we do not believe that the publication 
of the glad tidings to the world has been left in 
this loose and uncertain way. "We believe it to be 
extremely probable that our Father God, who gave 
the revelation of Himself in the human life of Je- 
sus of Nazareth, would use some means to make 
that revelation widely known, without the danger 
of mistake which must necessarily attach to all or- 
dinary means of publication ; and further, that He 
would take into consideration the case of those 
whom the ordinary channels of publication could 
not reach, those who lived before the Son of God 
came to earth % and those who, by reason of distance 
or for any other cause, were not reached by the or- 
9 



130 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

dinary channels. Take this in connection with 
what has been advanced before, and we reach the 
probability that use would be made of the agency 
of the omnipresent and eternal Spirit, to make the 
revelation known beyond the narrow bounds in 
which, from the nature of the case, it had to be 
given. 

And now, when we turn to the life and words of 
Jesus as given by the evangelists, we find that He 
speaks again and again of this very agency in mak- 
ing known the revelation which was given through 
Himself. The passages are so numerous that we 
can only refer to one or two as specimens. Speak- 
ing of the work of the u Spirit of truth" after He 
Himself should have left the world. He says (John 
xvi, 14): " He shall glorify Me, for He shall receive 
of Mine and shall show it unto you;" and again 
He says, after His death and resurrection (Acts i, 
8): "Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy 
Ghost is come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses 
unto Me." And not only does He refer to the 
Spirit's witness after His departure from the world, 
but again and again He refers to His testimony in 
the earlier ages of the world before His advent, as 
where we are told (Luke xxiv, 27): "Beginning at 
Moses and all the prophets, He expounded unto 
them in all the scriptures the things concerning 
Himself." 






KEVELATKm BY THE SPIEIT. 131 

"We have, then, the authority of the Lord Him- 
self for the inspiration of the prophets of the Old 
Testament and the apostles of the New. Hitherto 
we have been restricting ourselves to the claim of 
Christ Himself to speak in the name of God. But 
now, you observe, that claim is enlarged, so as to 
take in the prophets and apostles in a certain sense. 
In a certain sense, we say, because no one will claim 
that apostles and prophets stood in precisely the 
same relation either to God or to man, as Christ 
Himself did. He was the revealer of the Father 
and Savior of the world. They occupied a much 
humbler position — viz., that of witnesses to Him 
and to His truth. But the claim is now advanced 
for them that they were inspired witnesses, so that 
when we listen to them we are listening not to ordi- 
nary men, but to ambassadors of God. 

It would now be in order to examine this claim. 
To do it thoroughly would be manifestly a vain at- 
tempt in so brief a course as this must be. 

Suffice it only to say that, for the prophets of the 
Old Testament, we have as guarantees of their in- 
spiration — first, their own credentials, to be deter- 
mined by examining each separately,* and next, the 

*It should never be forgotten that the claim of Christ to be the reveal- 
er of God and Saviour of the world is not involved in this question of 
details. It is true that He affixes His seal to the testimony of the apos- 
tles and prophets, especially concerning Himself; but He nowhere de- 



132 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

seal of Christ Himself, in the references which He 
makes to them. And for the apostles of the New 
Testament, we have as guarantees — first, the prom- 
ise of special guidance, which Christ made to them 
before His death, and next, the evidence which we 
have at Pentecost, and from their subsequent lives 

fines the nature or extent of their inspiration. He nowhere speaks of 
them as qualified to teach science, or called to reveal scientific truth, 
unknown and undiscovered in their day. He never even claims, on 
their behalf, that they were so raised by their inspiration above the rest 
of mankind, as to be quite free from popular errors and misconceptions 
on subjects which do not form part of the moral and spiritual revela- 
tion they were commissioned to unfold. There is one passage which 
looks a little like this, where Christ says: "He will guide you into all 
truth ;" but when we look at the original Greek, we find that it is not 
all truth, but " all the truth," i. e. the truth in regard to things moral 
and spiritual; specially, as the context clearly shows, the truth in regard 
to Himself. While, then, we do expect from those who were under the 
guidance of the Spirit of God authoritative declarations on everything 
that pertains to " the great salvation," we do not expect them to throw 
in here some information on astronomy, there some anticipation of geo- 
logical discovery, again to propound some advanced theories on politics 
and government, and further on to show how to divide the electric light 
and how to construct the phonograph and telephone ! When you keep 
this in view you will see that a great many of the current objections of 
the day, which are supposed to lie against Christianity, are really only 
objections to certain theories of inspiration. Take the so-called " Mis- 
takes of Moses," for instance. I am one of those who believe that it is 
not Moses but his critics who are mistaken. But what if Moses were 
proved to have made some mistakes ? What if he were proved to be 
mistaken in his geological views? Would the fact, that he knew no 
more of science than the learning of the Egyptians could give him, 
militate against his claim to be a prophet of God ? Who ever said that 
one of the necessary credentials of a prophet of the Lord was omnis- 
cience ? I can not find any such claim in the words of Christ, or indeed 
in any part of the Bible. How absurd, then, is it to make the claims of 
Christ to be the revealer of the Father turn on the question whether 
Moses knew all about geology ? 



REVELATION BY THE SPIRIT. 133 

and teachings, that the promise was fulfilled. This 
double guarantee ought surely to afford us sufficient 
confidence in the teaching of these men on all sub- 
jects which come within the range of their high 
commission. 

Thus, you see, the revelations which came from 
the Spirit of God through the prophets, not only 
prepared the way for the coming of Christ, in the 
fulness of time, but provided for the spiritual wants 
of those who lived in the early ages of the world ; 
and the unfoldings of divine truth, which the 
apostles have furnished, come to us with the guar- 
antee that what they taught was not their own un- 
aided conception of that gospel which their Master 
had preached, but such views of it as were the re- 
sult of the guidance of that heavenly Instructor, 
whom their Master promised to send from the 
Father, to guide them into all the truth. Thus was 
guaranteed, to all who should come after, a certain- 
ty concerning these all-important matters, which 
could not have been enjoyed, if the promulgation 
of the truth had been left entirely to the ordinary 
channels of publication. 

The question still remains, of course, as to what 
guarantee we have that these scriptures in our hands 
faithfully represent the teachings, first, of Christ 
Himself, and then, of the prophets and apostles 



134 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

whose qualifications He guarantees to us. The 
consideration of this question will come under the 
next head — viz.: The Scriptures of the Old and 
]STew Testaments. 

Meantime let me only notice, in conclusion, that 
this doctrine of the Spirit's agency has an applica- 
tion beyond the inspiration of the prophets and 
apostles. The Spirit of God and of Christ is rep- 
resented, as not only inspiring prophets and apos- 
tles, but as dealing with all men, and ready to 
guide all who are ready to accept His guidance. 
Thus a way is provided by which even those may 
be reached who never had the opportunity of hear- 
ing the testimony of prophets and apostles, or of 
those who learned the way of life through them. It 
is true that the testimony of those who have them- 
selves received the truth is the great means which 
God lias appointed for the salvation of the world, 
and accordingly the disciples of Christ are enjoined 
to "go into all the world and preach the gospel to 
every creature." But, while these are the appointed 
means, we know that God can reach the hearts of 
men independently of appointed means; and thus, 
while firmly holding that the gospel is the power 
of God unto salvation, we can at the same time 
hold fast the assurance that " God is no respecter 
of persons, but in every nation he that feareth Him 



REVELATION BY THE SPIRIT. 135 

and worketh righteousness is accepted with Him." 
(Acts x, 34, 35). God can " fulfil Himself in many- 
ways." Though limitation was necessary in order 
to manifest Himself in the flesh, all limitations are 
transcended in the revelation by the Spirit. As 
human, Christ was limited and circumscribed; but 
as divine, no pent-up Nazareth or Palestine con- 
fined His powers. And of this He was fully con- 
scious, even in His earthly life. Looking back to 
the past, He said: "Before Abraham was, I am." 
Looking forward to the future, He gave the promise: 
" Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the 
world." And, casting His eye outward to the far- 
thest limits of the earth's population, He made the 
marvelous declaration: "Wherever two or three 
are gathered together in My name, there am I in 
the midst of them." 

Well, then, may the great apostle of the Gentiles 
say, and well may his w T ords go out to the utter- 
most ends of the earth: "Now, therefore, ye (Gen- 
tile nations) are no more strangers and foreigners, 
but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the house- 
hold of God; and are built upon the foundation of 
the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself be- 
ing the chief corner-stone, in whom all the building, 
fitly framed together, groweth unto a holy temple 
in the Lord, in whom ye also are builded together 
for a habitation of God through the Spirit." 



LECTUEE IX. 

THE SIXTY-SIX BOOKS. 

"We have seen that, not only did the Lord Jesus 
give the most satisfactory credentials of His exalted 
mission, but that the prophets who preceded Him 
and the apostles who followed Him had His guar- 
antee, in addition to any credentials of their own, for 
the accuracy and authority of their teaching of 
u the truth as it is in Jesus." And now we have to 
consider the question, as to what means we have of 
access to the teaching of these apostles and prophets 
and of Christ Himself, and what guarantee we have, 
that what has come down to us is indeed the very 
truth which they taught when they were here on 
earth. The answer to this question will bring us at 
last to what so many unfortunately are inclined to 
take first, viz.: the Holy Scriptures as an inspired 
record of the revelation which God has given to 
man. 

And here we have first to deal with the extraor- 
dinary perversity and unfairness, so common in our 

(136) 



THE SIXTY-SIX BOOKS. 137 

day, of treating the scriptures as if the whole mass 
were only one book. Of all the unfair devices for 
weakening the evidences of Christianity this is per- 
haps the very worst. And the strangest thing 
about it is, that so many good Christians allow it 
and even insist upon it. So great is the mischief 
arising from this that it would almost seem a pity, 
that, even for convenience' sake, the sixty-six books 
were so constantly bound together in one volume. 
For not only is there the unhappy result of reduc- 
ing the many witnesses to one, in the minds of un- 
thinking people, but even of silencing and put- 
ting out of court that one. For such unreasoning 
suspicion is abroad about the Bible, that there are 
multitudes of people, and even some good Chris- 
tian people, who would attach a great deal more 
importance to the statement of almost any author 
outside the Bible, than of any number of authors 
inside of it. Show them a fact attested by Matthew, 
Mark, Luke, and John, Paul and Peter, and they 
will say: "O that is all in the Bible; give us some- 
thing outside of the Bible and we will believe it." 
The Bible, in the first place, stands to them for a 
single author; and in the second place for a preju- 
diced author, one who has his own cause to bolster 
up; and accordingly a hundred confirmations within 
its covers are not so good as one from the outside 



138 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

would be. Is it not unreasonable in the extreme? 
Let me suppose a case, in order to put the mon- 
strous injustice in a clear light. Suppose that, very 
soon after the invention of printing, some enterpris- 
ing publisher had collected all the original mate- 
rials of any value in regard to the history of the Ro- 
man republic and bound them together into one 
volume, which he issued to the world under the 
title of " The History of the Roman Republic;" and 
suppose further that it became so popular, that it 
was circulated first by hundreds, then by thousands, 
then by hundreds of thousands, and finally by the 
million, so that it came into almost everybody's 
hands. But in course of time, after all the world 
had become so accustomed to it in its form of a 
single volume, there sprang up a fashion of skepti- 
cism on the whole subject, and everything in the 
volume was regarded with suspicion; and accord- 
ingly the whole history of the Roman republic was 
called into question. Those who believed it called 
attention to the many different authorities who cor- 
roborated each other. " Here is Livy, who writes 
about it in Latin. Here is Dio Cassius, who writes 
about the same thing in Greek. Here are speeches 
of Cicero that relate to the same events. And here are 
poems of Horace that could not have been written 
unless these facts were so." But they were imme- 



THE SIXTY-SIX BOOKS. 139 

diately put down, by triumphantly pointing out that 
all these different authorities were no authorities at 
all. "Why not? Because that publisher and that 
bookbinder of the fifteenth century had published 
and bound them up together! That of course set- 
tled the question. In the first place it disposed of 
all the separate witnesses, of Livy, and Dio, and 
Cicero, and all the rest; for were they not all bound 
together in the same volume? And in the second 
place it disposed even of the single witness of the 
bound book, because it was the credibility of the 
book itself, which was in question, and, therefore, 
all that was in the book must be ruled out as the 
testimony of an interested party. And so it came 
to pass that, from the single unfortunate circum- 
stance of the scattered materials having been con- 
sidered by this publisher to be worth collecting and 
publishing together, the evidence for the history of 
the Roman republic was actually wiped out of ex- 
istence. It is to be hoped that what may remain of 
the archives of the first century of American history 
may never be bound up in one volume, however 
large, or perhaps the people of the great future, the 
twenty -ninth century, for example, may not believe 
we ever had any history at all ! 

Let us then by all means remember, when we are 
dealing with the subject of the Scriptures, that we are 



140 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

dealing, not with one book, but with sixty-six; not 
with a single volume, but with a library. Remem- 
ber, further, that these sixty-six books are not links, 
but strands of evidence. There is, indeed, a golden 
chain of sacred history from Genesis to Revelation, 
so that, in a historical point of view, many of the 
books of the Bible are links. But, so far as the evi- 
dences of Christianity are concerned, they are not 
links but strands. This can be proved in a mo- 
ment. The strength of a chain is the strength of 
its weakest link; and if a single link be gone, the 
whole is useless. Now will any one pretend to say 
that, if it were proved that the book of Esther had 
no divine authority, we should have to give up the 
gospel of Matthew? Would there be no evidence 
for the divine authority of Christ if the Lamenta- 
tions of Jeremiah had happened to have been lost? 
Why, there would be enough to establish the divine 
authority of Christ if we had nothing more than 
the four evangelists, as we have already shown; and 
whatever of confirmation or elucidation comes from 
the sixty- two other books is just so much in ad- 
dition. The Bible is not a chain of sixty-six links; 
it is a cable of sixty-six strands; and if there is such 
strength as we have found in four of them, what 
shall we say of the united strength of all the sixty- 
six? 



THE SIXTY-SIX BOOKS. 141 

After delivering the lecture on the " Miracles of 
the Gospel," I had a courteous, though anonymous, 
letter, ridiculing the story related in the book of 
Daniel, of the three Hebrew youths in the fiery fur- 
nace, and asking how I could believe any of the 
miracles of Christ, seeing they rested on precisely 
the same ground, i. e. the same ground historically, 
for you will remember that no use whatever was 
made of the doctrine of inspiration. The letter was 
evidently that of an intelligent man, and it was ap- 
parently the production of a fair-minded man. And 
yet he said that the miracle of the fiery furnace re- 
corded in Daniel, and that of the healing of the 
leper recorded by Matthew r , were on the same 
ground, though the authors that speak of the one 
and of the other were six hundred years apart ! 
Think of it ! If it had not happened that Daniel and 
Matthew had been bound together in one volume 
for so long a time, it would never have occurred to 
this good man to say such a thing. Remember, we 
do not mean to say that a very good case could not 
be made out for the miraculous rescue of the three 
Hebrew captives, if that were before us; but to say 
that our ability to prove, as a matter of history, that 
the Lord Jesus healed a leper with a word, or fed 
five thousand people with a few loaves, depends on 
our ability to prove the reality of a rescue reported 



142 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

six hundred years before, is certainly very re- 
markable logic. 

AYe do not deny, indeed, that in a very important 
sense the Scriptures form one book, but only on the 
supposition of their divine origin. He who ques- 
tions their divine authority has no right to deal 
with them as one book. The very thing the skeptic 
sets out to disprove is the unity of authorship. He 
wishes to prove that it is only human, and this he 
cannot possibly do, if he holds on to the unity of 
authorship, for no one in his senses can believe that 
all these books were the production of one man. 
(How many centuries would such a man have had 
to live?) Suppose, for example, my critic, just re- 
ferred to, should undertake to prove that the miracle 
in Daniel, and that in Matthew, are on the same 
ground; how could he doit? He could only do it 
by showing that both were by the same author, 
which is the very thing that he denies, and which 
he must deny to sustain his position; for if they 
were both by the same author, that author must 
have been God, and therefore, both of them true. 
The spiritual unity of the sixty-six books will come 
before us in due time and in its proper place; but, 
unless we would beg the whole question, we must 
start with the human authorship in its multiplicity, 
and see whether we can, by legitimate means, reach 



THE SIXTY-SIX BOOKS. 143 

the divine authorship in its unity. Meantime what 
we have to do, is to see whether these numerous 
books, which are bound together into one volume 
and called the Bible, really come to us with the au- 
thority of those prophets and apostles who (as we 
saw in our last lecture) were divinely commissioned 
and inspired to teach men the way of salvation. 

Now, inasmuch as we cannot in a single lecture 
take up all the sixty-six books and examine them 
in detail, to find out whether each of them comes 
with apostolic or with prophetic authority, w r e shall 
have to content ourselves with indicating, in a gen- 
eral way, the nature of the evidence. And, first, we 
shall look at the twenty- seven books which make 
up the New Testament. It is a common idea that 
the authority of these twenty-seven books rests up- 
on the decree of some council as far down as the 
fourth or fifth century. At all events, this idea is 
industriously circulated on the part of those opposed 
to Christianity; but 1 have yet to find the first 
Christian author, among the Protestant churches, 
at least, who puts it on this ground. The author- 
ity on which the books of the New Testament are 
accepted is the authority of the apostles; and the 
authority of the apostles (as w T e have seen) rests up- 
on the authority of Christ. This makes the ques- 
tion a simple one concerning those books which 



144 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

were the work of the apostles themselves; as the 
gospels of Matthew and John, and the epistles of 
Paul and Peter. It becomes, in the case of these, 
simply a question of their genuineness. As to the 
other books, as the gospels of Mark and Luke, the 
Acts of the Apostles, and the anonymous epistle to 
the Hebrews (which may, however, have been 
written by Paul) there is good evidence that they 
were all sanctioned by the apostles, if not produced 
under their superintendence. The apostolic author- 
ity of the books which afterward were bound to- 
gether as the New Testament, was carefully guarded 
from the very earliest times, long before the first 
council met. Much has been made of the fact that 
there were disputes as to the authority of certain 
books; but this only shows that the claim to apos- 
tolic authority was not received without good evi- 
dence. And these disputes in the early history of 
the church were only in reference to five of the 
shortest and least important epistles. From the 
beginning, twenty-two books were allowed by all 
to be certainly of apostolic authority; and though 
afterward there was some debate about the epistle 
to the Hebrews on account of its being anonymous, 
and the book of Revelation on the supposition that 
it might have been some other John than the 
apostle of that name who wrote it, the very debate 



THE SIXTY-SIX BOOKS. 145 

about these books had the effect of bringing out 
such a mass of evidence in favor of their apostolic 
authority, that the question was set finally at rest. 
And thus, after careful examination and sifting, the 
conclusion was reached that the twenty-seven books, 
now bound together as the New Testament, had 
the sanction of the apostles, and therefore ultimately 
of Christ Himself. 

But then we have not the original manuscripts. 
Certainly not; no more than we have of Virgil, or 
Juvenal, or Seneca, or any of those who wrote in 
these times. "What evidence, then, have we that 
our copies are correct? The very same kind of evi- 
dence that we have in the case of the classical 
authors, only ten -fold stronger — for this reason, that 
the number of copies is so very much greater. We 
do not pretend that there was any infallibility in 
the copyists. But, on the whole, the copies must 
have been wonderfully correct; because among such 
a multitude there is so much agreement, and the 
differences are in such little things. Suppose that 
you had fifty to one hundred fairly good copies of 
some document, could you not very easily make 
sure of a correct copy? Even though each one of 
the fifty made mistakes, they would not all make 
the same mistakes. If, for example, you found that 
one of them left out a word, while the other forty- 
10 



146 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

nine put it in, you would have no doubt whatever 
that it ought to go in. On the other hand, if one 
inserted a sentence which the other forty-nine left 
out, you would be inclined to think that sen- 
tence did not belong to the original document. 
And it is evident, that just in proportion to the 
number and independence of the different copies 
would be the certainty that, after comparing them 
wisely together, you had a correct reproduction of 
the original. 

When, more than one hundred and fifty years 
ago, it was first made known to the world that the 
manuscript copies of the Scriptures did not agree in 
every letter and word, there was a feeling of alarm 
through all Christendom, and the infidels of the 
time loudly proclaimed that the end had come, and 
very soon the last would be heard of the Christians' 
Bible. It was all corrupt, they said, and there was 
no guarantee that the manuscripts remaining were 
at all the same as the apostolic originals. Then 
followed the tremendous labor of comparing the 
manuscripts. " Thirteen to fifteen hundred Greek 
manuscripts" (I quote from Gaussen), "sought out 
from all the libraries of Europe and Asia, were 
carefully compared with one another, word by 
word, letter by letter, by modern criticism, and 
compared, too, with all the ancient versions, Latin, 



THE SIXTY-SIX BOOKS. 147 

Armenian, Syriac, Sahidic, Coptic, Ethiopic, Arabic, 
Sclavonian, Gothic, and Persian, and with all the 
quotations made from the New Testament by the 
ancient fathers in their innumerable writings." 
And with what result? The firm establishment of 
a genuine text, so that still, " over all the world 
you will see all the sects of Christians, even the 
most opposite, give us the same Greek Testament, 
without the various readings having been able to 
form among them two distinct schools." Thus the 
very criticism which was expected utterly to de- 
molish the text of the New Testament scriptures 
has established it upon an immovable basis. There 
are, as w T as to be expected, a few doubtful passages; 
but these are so few and of such slight importance, 
that they really do not affect our assurance as to 
the genuine apostolic teaching. If every doubtful 
passage should be left out, the truth as it is in Jesus 
w T ould be just the same as it was before. And thus 
it has come to pass that after this verbal and criti- 
cal comparison has said its last word, we have assu- 
rance made doubly sure. We have, then, the very 
best reasons for accepting as authoritative and gen- 
uine all the twenty-seven books of the New Testa- 
ment. 

And then, besides all, the internal evidence cor- 
roborates the external. Compare the four apostolic 



148 THE F0UHBATXOK& 

gospels with -irailar productions that were issued 
without ap<: stolic :::on, and what a difference! 
The meir-: tyro in literary ;: : ;:sm can see it at 
once. And so, too, when you compare the epistles 
>f Paul with those of Clement, for instance. Though 
it is evident that Clement is a good man, he Ml 
far short in original:: - n s tren _ Eh of all the scrip- 
ture writers, that you recognize him at once as an 
ordinary man. Let any one, of even moderate in- 
telligence, compare the boots of the New Tc 
ment with the private productions of even the best 
of men in the infancy of the church, and he will 
read:> see the clear line of demarcation which 
arates that which is apostolic from that which is 
priv 

The evidence for the prophetic authority of the 
thirty-nine books of the 01 -1 Testament is so nearly 
the same, that it is not necessary bo gc over the 
ground. There is, of course, the disadvantage of 
the greater antiquity of the books, wh is, how- 
ever, to a large r:rnt counterbalanced by the b 
pulous and even supers: ire which was taken 

1 the Hebrew sts, and the marvelous 

unanimity of the most opposi: and pai 

among the Jews in regard to the text : :he Scrip- 
tures : :.nd, on the other hand, there is the sanction 
which Chris: Himself and His apostles gav- 



THE SIXTY-SIX BOOKS. 149 

frequent quotation, and by the unvarying habit of 
referring to those Scriptures as the oracles of God. 
The result of the whole is, to use the words of one 
who has made the transmission of ancient books 
to modern times a special study (Isaac Taylor), the 
Scriptures have come down to us "with an evidence 
of their genuineness and integrity ten-fold more 
various, copious, and conclusive than can be ad- 
duced in support of any other ancient writing." 
And thus, without any use of any decree of any 
council, is satisfactory answered the question, as to 
what means we have of access to the teachings of 
the apostles and of Christ Himself, and what guar- 
antee we have that what has come down to us is 
indeed the very truth which they taught when here 
on earth. 

Now would be the time for discussing the nature 
and degree of that inspiration which those prophets 
and apostles enjoyed, on whom the authority of the 
sixty-six books of the Old and New Testaments rests. 
The importance of the question can not be denied. 
But we hold that it has been very much exaggerated, 
and that much mischief has been done by pressing 
particular theories of inspiration, and insisting upon 
making Christ and Christianity responsible for 
them. How many, for example, have been led, by 
popular representations of inspiration, to regard the 



150 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

prophets and apostles as mere machines, mere 
amanuenses, mere pens in the hand of God; where- 
as it is quite evident that, whatever the nature and 
degree of divine influence may have been, it did 
not destroy their individuality or reduce their mani- 
fold witness. We have already seen how unscriptu- 
ral it is to suppose that apostles and prophets must 
have been omniscient because they were inspired. 
It would seem, however, that any view r of inspira- 
tion was practically worthless, which admits of 
errors in setting forth the very facts and truths 
which they were commissioned to make known. 
For how then should we be able to distinguish that 
which comes to us with divine authority from that 
which was only a matter of opinion? 

On the other hand, we do not think it necessary 
or wise to insist on infallibility in regard to all 
subjects incidentally touched. "Who would think, 
for example, that it would have been suitable to 
have departed from current modes of thought and 
speech, in reference to the stability of the earth, so 
as to bring the words into agreement with the astro- 
nomic reality of the case? "We do not think it 
necessary even yet to do so, and we very properly 
set down as pedantic those who try it. How much 
more pedantic and absurd would it have been, when 
all the world was ignorant of the true facts of the 
case. 



THE SIXTY-SIX BOOKS. 151 

Take the language used about creation as an ex- 
am pie. We take it because it is more criticised and 
objected to than anything else in the scriptures. 
Now, on the supposition that it was necessary to 
give men some idea of the divine agency in all the 
wide domain of creation, there were three suppos- 
able ways in which it might have been done. First, 
all wrong scientific notions might have been cor- 
rected. This would have necessitated a long treat- 
ise on astronomy, another on geology, another on 
natural history, with perhaps a lengthy chapter 
on evolution, long before the world was prepared 
for anything of the kind. This is w^hat many of 
the scientific objectors of the day seem to think 
there ought to have been; but is it not absurd? 

Or again, the truth might have been taught con- 
cerning God's relation to the different parts of crea- 
tion, in such a way as to conform to the ordinary 
notions which were current at the time, the object 
being, not to correct the science of the period, 
but to set men right on the religious aspects of the 
case. This is the view taken by many, and we do 
not think it especially objectionable. A moment's 
thought will show that it would have been a much 
more reasonable and less pedantic course than the 
other, which so many unthinking people suppose 
ought to have been taken. 



152 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

But there is a third way; and we think that some- 
where in this direction lies the true account of 
the matter. The language may have been chosen, 
so as to conflict neither with the ideas then preva- 
lent, nor with the actual verities of the case. The 
result would be, that the people who lived during 
the fifty-five centuries, more or less, before Coper- 
nicus, would have some chance to understand it, 
though of course they would understand it in con- 
formity with their own ideas on scientific subjects; 
that is to say. they would get true religious ideas 
from it, but their scientific notions would remain 
unchanged. In such a case, however, when the 
scientific truth was at last discovered, there would 
at first be an impression, that the Bible was on the 
side of the old ideas; but, on close examination, it 
would be found that, while nothing had been said to 
disturb the minds of men when there was no occasion 
for it, and only harm could result from it, the 
lano-nao;e used was really such as to be in harmonv 
with the actual facts of the case. 

This view of the case I am disposed to take, 
not because I think the second a dangerous or 
unworthy view, but because I can not otherwise ac- 
count for the many wonderful harmonies with sci- 
ence, which careful investigation has brought out. 
Let any one read the works of such eminent scien- 



THE SIXTY-SIX BOOKS. 153 

tific men as Dawson or Dana, which bring out the 
wonderful harmonies of that old record with mod- 
ern science, and he will see reason for believing 
that, however little the original author of the first 
chapter of Genesis may have known of science, he 
was so guided by some heavenly inspiration as to 
"build better than he knew." This illustration 
may serve to show, that the relation of inspiration 
to the science of the time, when the different scrip- 
tures were produced, may well be left an open ques- 
tion, so long as the plenary view is held in relation 
to the great subjects and objects of revelation, as set 
forth in that passage of scripture which is more 
explicit than any other on the subject: " The holy 
scriptures are able to make thee wise unto salva- 
tion, through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All 
scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is 
profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, 
for instruction in righteousness: that the man of 
God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished" — not 
unto all scientific disquisitions — but "unto all 
good works." 



LECTUKE X. 



THE ONE BOOK. 



In dealing with the scriptures as ordinary pro- 
ductions, so as to ascertain their value and credibil- 
ity, historically considered, we have seen that it is 
unfair to treat them as if the whole formed only 
one book. Remember that there is no question as 
to the human authorship. And so long as we are 
dealing with these books as the productions of hu- 
man authors, it is manifestly unjust to disregard 
the confluence of testimony from so many different 
points. But, while we never dream of denying the 
human authorship, we maintain that this is not 
the whole account of the matter, that there is a di- 
vine element running through them all, and that, 
therefore, the boards of the book binder are not the 
only bond which binds these different books to- 
gether into unity. The multiplicity of the books 
is a patent fact, which every one can see who has 
only common sense enough not to confound together 

(154) 



THE ONE BOOK. 155 

authorship and book-binding, and which would 
never be forgotten, if it were not convenient some- 
times to do so, in order to weaken the historical basis 
of Christianity. But the unity of the books is some- 
thing which lies deeper, and which requires some 
power of appreciating spiritual and divine things to 
recognize; but when once it is recognized, it adds so 
immensely to the strength of the historical argument 
as to give perfect repose to those who are fairly 
brought face to face with it. "We can as usual only 
indicate in briefest outline the nature of the evi- 
dence, which is so copious, that almost every page 
of the Bible is lighted up with it, for those who 
have eyes to see. 

Keeping in mind the evidence we have from his- 
tory that these scriptures now in our hands have 
come to us with the authority of the prophets and 
apostles, guaranteed by Christ Himself, it is now in 
order to look into them, and see if their contents cor- 
respond with what we should expect of writings so 
highly authenticated. You will see that we are now 
in the same attitude in which we found ourselves 
in dealing with the second part of our whole argu- 
ment. After satisfying ourselves that the claim 
was distinctly made, on behalf of Jesus of Naza- 
reth, that He was the Messiah sent to reveal the 
Father, we inquired how His life and words bore 



156 THE FOUjSTDATIOJSTS. 

out the claim. How, in this third part of the argu- 
ment, having satisfied ourselves that these books 
before us are the very books which come to us with 
prophetic and apostolic authority, we now proceed 
to inquire how far an inspection of their contents 
bears out their claim. And here again we shall 
follow the same method. We shall raise the ques- 
tion as to what we should reasonably expect of such 
books; and if we find all reasonable expectations 
realized, surely it will be but fair to grant that the 
claim is established. 

What, then, may we reasonably expect of these 
books, if it be true that they come to us, not as 
mere private productions, but by inspiration of 
God? 

1. We should expect that, amid all diversity of 
matter and of form, there would be unity of spirit. 
And is it not so? Think for a moment how appro- 
priate is the name " Holy Bible v as a title of the 
entire collection. Matthew Arnold has shown how 
the idea of righteousness is the central idea of the 
Old Testament, and he is correct as far as he goes; 
and it is welT worth. pondering how far this single 
fact may go toward proving the presence of a di- 
vine element throughout. But the fact is much 
stronger than as Arnold puts it, for it is not right- 
eousness in the common acceptation of the word, 



THE ONE BOOK. 157 

which might readily be supposed to cover only those 
virtues, which the common conscience of mankind, 
always and everywhere, more or less demands; but 
it is holiness, something much higher, purer, and 
more comprehensive, which is the keynote of the 
Bible from beginning to end. Even in the rude 
Mosaic age, when the state of society was such, that 
many things far from ideally right had to be al- 
lowed " for the hardness of their hearts," when 
many of the political regulations reflected the im- 
perfect spirit of the times, dealing as such regula- 
tions ought always to deal, with the practicable 
rather than the ideal, — even then we see, shining on 
the mitre of the high priest, the plate of pure gold 
with this inscription: "Holiness to the Lord." 
And the attentive student finds the conviction 
growing upon him that, while the external history 
was very much what would be expected of the age, 
and the political regulations had to a certain extent 
to conform thereto, yet, "the law " proper, both the 
moral and ceremonial branches of it, held up, as an 
ideal before the people, nothing short of perfect 
holiness. And the keynote struck by the law is 
followed out by all the prophets, taken up in a ten- 
derer, sweeter strain by Christ Himself, and pro- 
longed by the holy apostles, until at the close of 
the book of Eevelation, we are introduced into the 



158 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

holy city, " where there shall in no wise enter any- 
thing that defileth," but over which reigns the 
"Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty." Can 
you fail to recognize the unity here? And, observe, 
it is not mere unity, but a unity of the most ele- 
vated kind, having the divine signet upon it; for, 
indeed, it is a question whether this idea, which 
runs like a golden thread through all the scriptures 
of the Old and New Testaments, ever entered into 
the minds of the most cultivated nations of the 
ancient world, or into the mind of man at all from 
any other source. 

Again, there is not only one purpose, the loftiest, 
and purest, and noblest that could be conceived, 
running through all the scriptures, but there is one 
plan for the realizing of this purpose. "When we 
look at the means provided for leading men to holi- 
ness, we find, not a great many different sugges- 
tions from different minds, as we should expect 
from authors so diverse in their talents, tempera- 
ments, education, and surroundings, and so far sep- 
arated from each other in time; but one consistent 
plan of a kingdom of God, the standard of which is 
holiness, and its method mercy, — mercy and truth 
meeting together, righteousness and peace embrac- 
ing each other, as it is put in the expressive lan- 
guage of the 85th Psalm. This wonderful unity is 



THE ONE BOOK. 159 

one which would require volumes to develop, but 
we can only suggest it here. 

And in the same way it will be found, that all the 
main thoughts which are expressed by the different 
authors on the great subject of revelation, such as 
God, man, duty, goodness, sin, salvation, instead of 
presenting that conflict which you always find, when 
human philosophy without special divine aid at- 
tempts to discuss such questions, are so fully in ac- 
cord that, as we have seen, it is difficult, even for 
those who deny the divine element in the scriptures, 
to avoid treating the whole as if it were the produc- 
tion of one man. 

Finally, there is that most wonderful unity of 
all, referred to by our Lord himself, which appears 
when you recognize the great fact, that all the man- 
ifold witness of the books converges on Christ 
Here, again, the field is too wide to enter upon; 
but those who examine it will find it a most fruit- 
ful field of investigation. And so conclusive is the 
argument based upon it, that the only thing infidel- 
ity can do in the matter is to take up, in succes- 
sion, the most striking passages which set forth the 
hope of a coming Savior, and explain them away as 
best it can — a task which must remain forever hope- 
less, for this most weighty reason, that the ancient 
Jews themselves understood them in their Messianic 



160 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

sense. (For a full and learned presentation of this 
subject, see "Westcott's "Introduction to the study 
of the Gospels," Chap. II.) And it only shows the 
desperate straits to which infidelity is reduced in 
dealing with this subject, when its advocates are 
constrained to impose a forced and unnatural mean- 
ing on a whole series of passages in different books 
of the Old Testament, though the testimony of those 
who lived nearest the time is against them, and 
though Christ Himself, whom they profess to re- 
gard as the most intelligent Jew of his age, under- 
stood and expounded them as applying to Himself. 
As for the modern Jews who reject Christ, they of 
course join with the infidels in getting rid of those 
passages, for the very good reason that it is only in 
this way that they can reject the New Testament 
while retaining the Old. Thus, all through the Old 
Testament, there is a convergence of hope, looking 
for the coming Christ, and all through the New 
there is a convergence of faith, resting on the Christ 
who has come and fulfilled " the hope of Israel," — 
a unity which fully harmonizes with the claim the 
apostle Peter advances on behalf of the prophets, 
when he speaks of them as "searching what or what 
manner of time the spirit of Christ, which was in 
them, did signify, when it testified beforehand of 
the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should 
follow." 



THE ONE BOOK. 161 

Thus, in every way, the unity of spirit, which the 
theory of inspiration calls for, is fully borne out by 
a careful inspection of the numerous books of the 
Old and New Testaments. 

2. Another thing we should expect, if the claim 
of inspiration is well-founded; that, though the 
authors, as men, must necessarily have been moulded 
and controlled by their times and surroundings, yet 
their productions would have a large element of 
universal adaptation in them. And is it not so? Is 
it not so, to a degree that is altogether unaccount- 
able, apart from some influence of the Spirit of God? 

Think, first, how every part of our complex nature 
is powerfully appealed to: the conscience, the intel- 
lect, the affections, the imagination, the will. Read 
Dr. Hopkins' fifth lecture on the "Evidences," if 
you wish to see how much there is in this one thing, 
which we can only mention in passing. 

Think, next, of the adaptation to different classes 
of men. Have not the most cultured and the most 
simple-minded, the highest and the lowest, the rich- 
est and the poorest, found here, as nowhere else, a 
satisfaction for the wants of their natures? It is to 
no purpose to point to any number of cultured per- 
sons who reject the Bible, and speak slightingly of 
it; for the mere fact that they reject it is a sufficient 
reason why they can not be expected to appreciate 
11 " 



162 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

it. The question is not, what satisfaction it gives to 
those who will have nothing to do with it, but how 
it meets the wants of those who put it to the proof, 
who take it as a lamp to their feet and a light to their 
patli ; and it can not be denied that, while one of the 
glories of the gospel is, that it is preached specially 
to the poor, and another is, that even the little chil- 
dren have their portion in it, and quite a large one 
too, as our Sunday-school experience fully shows, 
many of the most scholarly and highty-cultivated 
of men have confessed its unrivaled adaptation to 
the wants of their own natures. 

Think, further, of its adaptation to all the differ- 
ent circumstances of life. All experienced Chris- 
tians can set their seal to the following testimony 
of Archbishop Trench, in his lecture on the inex- 
haustibility of Scripture: "What an interpreter of 
scripture is affliction! How many stars in its 
Heaven shine out brightly in the night of sorrow 
or of pain. . . . What an enlarger of scrip- 
ture is any other outer or inner event which stirs 
the deeps of our hearts; which touches us near to 
the core and centre of our lives. Trouble of spirit, 
condemnation of conscience, pain of body, sudden 
danger, strong temptation — when any of these 
overtakes us, what veils do they take away that we 
may see what hitherto we saw not; what new do- 



THE ONE BOOK. 163 

mains of God's word do they bring within our 
spiritual ken! How do promises, which once fell 
flat upon our ears, become precious now, psalms 
become our own, our heritage forever, which before 
were aloof from us! . . . How much, again, 
do we see in our riper age which in youth we 
missed or passed over. And thus, on these accounts 
also, the Scripture is well fitted to be our compan- 
ion and do us good all the years of our life." 

Let us still further think of its adaptation to 
different nations and races of men. Our religion 
is really the only catholic religion, our Bible the 
only collection of sacred books, that has proved its 
adaptation to peoples the most widely separated 
from each other. No two civilizations could be 
more widely separated than the Oriental civiliza- 
tion, out of the bosom of which the books of the 
Bible sprang, and that Western civilization, which 
is founded on it and has grown out of it. And it 
has been proved to be adapted not only to the most 
diverse civilizations, but even to barbarism itself; 
for some of the most wonderful trophies of the el- 
evating, purifying, exalting influences of the Bible 
have been found among the most degraded races on 
the face of the earth. The more you investigate the 
matter, the more you will be convinced that, while 
it was indeed true that Christ "came unto His 



1 54 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

own and His own received Him not/ 5 and though 
many of every nation to whom He has come have 

ived Him not, vet " as mai- i Him," 

of whatever nation, kindred, people or tongne. •• ::• 
them gave He >wei : become the soi Tod." 

The wild Hottentot, if only he es Christ, be- 

comes so elevated and pnrified thereby, as to be in 

ati on to vindicate his claim to be a bc d : God, 

dl as the bes: . i 
The adaptation of the Bible to all 
of the world's history might close this series, were 
it not that it in trod;; - s to a new feature which 

aeration, viz.: 
The progressiveness >f the Bible. The unity 
of tone and tenor, of purpose and s ;nd plan, 

which we find throughout the Bible, is not a dead 
but a living unity. It is a unity of progress, :: de- 
velopment. There was evidently an educational de- 
velopment along the line of the Scripture 

-:udv of which is both interesting and instruc- 
There - :» a germinating and springi 

a budding and blossoming of that hope of Israel 
which found its fruitage in k *the fulness of the 
time," when God sent His Son into the world. 
There was levelopment of doctrine, too, not only 
throughout the long ages of the Old Testament, but 
d in the brief compass of the New, :s is most 



THE ONE BOOK. 165 

beautifully and convincingly shown by Bernard, in 
the Bam p ton Lectures for 1867. 

And then, though the canon has been so long 
complete, it is a remarkable fact that, as progress 
is made in other things, we are making fresh dis- 
coveries in the inexhaustible mine of Scripture. 
Just as in Nature many things continue hidden 
from the ages and generations, until the appointed 
time comes round, and a Newton or an Edison 
makes patent what has long been latent; so is 
it in Scripture. And thus it comes to pass, that 
the Bible is always in advance of the age, just as 
Nature is always in advance of the science of the 
age. What more characteristic of the advance of 
religious thought in the present century, than the 
development of that charity and liberality, which 
for many centuries was so conspicuously absent. 
But when we open the Bible, lo! there is a charity 
and liberality, shining on the face of it, so brightly, 
that it is almost incredible that centuries should 
have passed, before it was recognized. It has been 
beautifully suggested, that much of the truth which 
the Bible contains has been written, as it were, with 
sympathetic ink, invisible until the time should 
come, when the world was ready to receive a new 
heritage of truth. This wonderful progressiveness 
in the Bible leads us to a fourth point, viz.: 



166 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

4. "What the Bible has to say about the future. 
And here we might reasonably expect, that there 
would be some provision to meet that want of our 
nature, which yearns to know something of what 
lies within the veil. On the other hand, we should 
not reasonably expect that such a revelation of the 
future would be given, as to satisfy an idle curiosity. 
Revelation with reticence, then, is what we should 
expect. And is it not even so? The prophetic ele- 
ment of scripture has for its consistent aim from 
beginning to end, not the gratification of a prying 
curiosity, but the practical object of warning, guid- 
ing and comforting those to whom it was given, and 
supplying them with motives to personal holiness 
and ardent devotion to the best interests of their fel- 
low-men. Hence an intentional vagueness and in- 
definiteness in prophetic language. But, notwith- 
standing this, there has been already such a marked 
fulfilment of a large number of prophecies, that 
strong arguments have been founded on this alone, 
for the inspiration of the Scriptures. The constant 
attempt of unbelievers has been, to bring down the 
date of the prophecies so as to give plausibility to the 
supposition that the fulfilment came before the 
prophecy, or else to explain the correspondence by 
the notion of shrewd guesses or far-sighted prog- 
nostication; but let any one study the subject can* 






THE ONE BOOK. 167 

didly and thoroughly, and he will see that, after all 
doubtful cases are set aside, there remain a suffi- 
cient number of unmistakable prophecies, which 
could not possibly have been written after the event, 
to support the claim of inspiration. 

But the special point now before us has to do 
rather with that which is still in the future, and 
especially with those revelations of the world be- 
yond the grave, which we find in scanty measure, 
but in growing clearness, till, in the end, we rest 
with delight on the glowing imagery of the closing 
chapters of the Apocalypse. Now if any one will 
contrast these reticent and reserved un veilings of 
the future with the corresponding teachings of the 
Koran, for instance, or the Buddhist sacred books, 
the vast difference will be very apparent. Here, 
as everywhere in the Scriptures, the moral impres- 
sion is everything ; the gratification of curiosity, 
or of sensual desire, nothing. 

The subject is really exhaustless. As we said at 
the outset, it requires some powers of appreciation 
to begin with; but, given these powers of apprecia- 
tion, and we are confident that, the longer the sub- 
ject is studied, the more will the evidences throng 
around from every side, that this is more than a 
collection of ordinary books bound together; that 
they are indeed what they claim to be — the work 



168 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

of " holy men of old, who spake as they were moved 
by the Holy Ghost." 

And now what is there to be said on the other side ? 
What can the infidel bring forward, to counterbal- 
ance the mass of evidence which we have only hint- 
ed at in the briefest way? A string of objections 
and difficulties, founded on particular passages, and 
most of them appealing to our ignorance. Now, 
we do not say that these objections and difficulties 
are all paltry. Far from it. Many of them are. 
Still, a considerable number are undoubtedly hard 
to deal with. But what of that ? Is it not just 
what was to have been expected? 

Is Nature free from difficulties ? And yet does 
the presence of these difficulties prove that it is not 
divine in its origin ? There is a superficial rough- 
ness and ruggedness in many parts of the Bible, but 
that does not prove that there are not mines of 
wealth under the surface, any more than the rough- 
ness of Colorado proves it to be a God-forsaken 
country, as some represented it to be, before its 
hidden riches were disclosed. Just as in the investi- 
gation of Nature, so in the study of the Bible, labor 
is needed, patience is needed, sympathy is needed; 
but, when these are present, difficulties rapidly dis- 
appear, and if any still remain hard and insoluble, 
yet having so very much to build a solid faith upon, 



THE ONE BOOK. 169 



we can well afford to wait, to suspend our judgment 
on some points if need be, feeling fully assured 
that what we know not now we shall know here- 
after. 

Our treatment of so wide a subject in limits so 
narrow must necessarily be exceedingly inadequate; 
but even little as we have said, we think we have 
said enough to show that, difficulties included, we 
find these books of the Old and New Testaments to 
be just what we should reasonably expect them to 
be as inspired productions; and, therefore, to the 
strong external evidence brought out in former 
lectures must be added the still stronger internal 
evidence, that these Scriptures are in very deed the 
oracles of God. 



CONCLUDING CONTRAST. 



LECTUKE XI. 

THE STRONGHOLD OF UNBELIEF. 

Haying finished our brief review of the evidences 
by which our belief in the inspiration of the Scrip- 
tures is sustained, we might take up next the evi- 
dence furnished for the truth of Christianity by its 
influence, as observed and experienced. This would 
introduce us into an entirely new field, where again 
we should find innumerable confirmations of the 
divine origin of our holy religion. But, though 
the field is a very inviting one, our narrow limits 
will not permit us to enter it, covering, as it does, 
the broad ground of modern history. We may get 
some idea of how much there is in it, by reading 
such a book as the recent work of Uhlhorn on the 
Conflict of Christianity with Heathenism in the 
first three centuries. 

We feel constrained, therefore, to dismiss the sub- 
ject with one caution. It has been the fashion of 
late years to ransack history, for the purpose of find- 
ing, and bringing out into the boldest relief, every- 

(173) 



174 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

thing that can be made to tell against the influence 
of Christianity. I need not remind you how the 
imprisonment of Galileo, the martyrdom of Gior- 
dano Bruno, and the burning of Servetus, have be- 
come the best known events in history; so much so 
that it seems strange, that many distinguished wri- 
ters and speakers should still see the necessity of 
rehearsing the same stories for the ten- thousandth 
time. The burning of witches must of course be 
added to the catalogue, and a few other historical 
items of the same kind. It does not take many to 
make up a complete stock in trade. The caution I 
mean to interpose is this, that we be careful to dis- 
tinguish between what is really due to Christ and 
Christianity, and what is due to entirely different, 
not to say antipodal causes, such as ecclesiasticism, 
sectarian bigotry, and " science, falsely so called," 
not to speak of the depravity of human nature, 
which will manifest itself inside the church as well 
as outside of it. It is easy for a Draper, after de- 
fining Christianity as synonymous with the Roman 
church, to fasten some very strong imputations 
upon it. It is eas} r to array Religion against Sci- 
ence, if, by "Religion," you mean the scholastic 
philosophy in league with the Ptolemaic system of 
astronomy. "Will any one dare to say that Christ 
would have imprisoned Galileo, or that Bruno was 



THE STRONGHOLD OF UNBELIEF. 175 

put to death because Christianity demanded it? 
Will any one dare to say that the burning of Ser- 
vetus, whosesoever fault it was, was in accord with 
the spirit of Christianity, as taught by Christ Him- 
self and His apostles? Is our civilization to be 
credited with all the murders that are committed 
within its pale? Is the republican form of govern- 
ment to be held responsible for all the corruptions 
which disgrace it, when it is put in operation 
among men like ourselves who, though we belong 
to the most enlightened nineteenth century, are, 
nevertheless, still as liable as ever to abuse the best 
of things ? Why then should Christianity be held 
responsible for all the abuses which, though done 
in its name, have been in direct opposition to its 
spirit and teachings? 

The experimental argument is also a very tempt- 
ing one, and the most conclusive of all to those who 
have actually made the experiment. But we pass 
this by also, only remarking that, while it is abso- 
lutely conclusive only to those who have tested it 
themselves, it nevertheless ought to have great force 
with all, in consideration of the vast multitude of 
examples of the elevating and sanctifying power of 
Christianity. When the advocate of a purely secu- 
lar morality can say that " the appearance of but a 
single example proves the adequacy of the belief" 



176 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

(See " Is Life Worth Living?" p. 82), while we think 
he is putting it too strongly, and we should never 
think of insisting on the adequacy of our belief, if 
it had only one or a few examples to sustain it, yet, 
surely, it may be allowed us to say, that the ap- 
pearance of such an innumerable array of examples 
furnishes a very strong confirmation of the adequacy 
of a belief, w T hich is at the same time vouched for 
by a vast accumulation of evidence from other and 
independent sources. 

Dismissing, then, the argument from history, 
and from experience, we propose to deal now with 
a difficulty which may lie in many minds, and 
which is rather increased than diminished by a pre- 
sentation of the many converging lines of evidence. 
It is this: If the evidence is so abundant and satis- 
factory, why do so many remain unconvinced ? The 
difficulty WQuld not indeed be great, if the unbelief 
could be traced in all cases, as it can in a great 
many, to dislike of the truth, or to carelessness and 
inattention, or even to stupidity. But the skepti- 
cism of the age is not so easily explained. After 
you have deducted the large number who love dark- 
ness rather than light, and the still larger number 
who are so little interested in the subject that they 
do not care to give it any attention, there still re- 



THE STKONGHOLD OF UNBELIEF. 177 

mains a sufficiently formidable array of unbeliev- 
ers of good moral character, of decided intellectual 
ability, and with all the appearance of candor, who 
claim to have examined the evidences of Christiani- 
ty and found them insufficient. Is there any ex- 
planation to be given of this, in harmony with what 
we have said as to the strength of our position? 

We might, indeed, in regard to a large part of 
this moral and cultured infidelity, that which may 
be called the scientific skepticism of the age, call 
attention to the influence of theone-sidedness of the 
scientific culture, which is not balanced by a corres- 
ponding spiritual development. If the exclusive 
study of theology unfits a man, as it certainly does, 
for appreciating the methods of scientific demonstra- 
tion, why should we shut our eyes to the fact, that 
the exclusive study of science unfits a man for ap- 
preciating the methods of spiritual demonstration? 
But not only is there a tendency towards material- 
istic conceptions of the universe, on the part of those 
who are continually occupied with things material, 
corresponding to the tendency in the other direction 
of the specialist in theology; but the former is 
much the stronger tendency of the two, because it 
is reinforced by the natural preference which men 
in general have for that which ministers to the 
specially urgent wants of the lower part of their na- 
12 



173 THE FOUNDATIONS, 

ture. The theologian may neglect science, but he 
has a body which he neglects at his peril, and those 
dependent on him have claims which cannot be set 
aside; and accordingly perforce a large portion of 
his attention must be directed toward things ma- 
terial. But the scientific man may neglect his spirit- 
ual nature utterly without dying a death which any 
one can see; he may live day after day and year af- 
ter year, without cultivating in the slightest degree 
those faculties, by which he is related to God and 
the realities of the spiritual sphere, and yet neither 
himself nor family visibly suffers on account of the 
neglect; and so it comes to pass that the one-sided- 
ness of the scientific bigot is much more thorough 
than the one-sidedness of the theologic bigot can 
possibly be. In this direction we are convinced lies 
the explanation of a large part of the scientific in- 
fidelity of the time. 

But this consideration, we readily admit, does 
not apply with the same force to the historians, and 
still less to the theologians, who are found in our 
day in the ranks of the unbelieving. As to the 
theologians, it must be borne in mind that, when 
church and state are so closely allied as they are on 
the continent of Europe, it does not follow that the 
occupants of theological chairs are truly represent- 
ative of the Christianity of the land. Many of the 



THE STRONGHOLD OF UNBELIEF. 179 

utterances from the theological chairs have not been 
from a spiritual, but from a purely philosophical 
standpoint — a fact which must be borne in mind 
in estimating their significance as signs of the times. 
But whatever discount we may have to make from 
the spiritual insight of such men, we cannot deny 
their competency as literary and historic critics; 
and how is it that they can examine so thor- 
oughly as they seem to do, the historic foundations 
of Christianity, and yet come to the conclusion 
that what we receive as facts are only myths and 
legends? 

The answer to this question will introduce us to 
the present stronghold of infidelity; and, strange to 
say, it is a dogma, a dictum, an oracular utterance 
of certain men. The dogma is this, that there can 
be no such thing as a power above nature made 
known to man. The supernatural must be got rid 
of at all hazards, and if facts seem to stand in the 
way, so much the worse for the facts, that is all. 
It is laid down as a foundation principle, that no 
amount of evidence can be accepted as proof of 
anything supernatural. Let me present a few quo- 
tations to make the dogmatism of these skeptics 
apparent. Strauss, in his Life of Jesus for the Ger- 
man people, under the head of "Considerations 
preparatory to the following investigation," says 



180 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

(§23): "The miraculous is a foreign element in the 
gospel narratives of Jesus, which resists all histori- 
cal treatment, and the conception of the myth is 
the means whereby we eliminate it from our sub- 
ject." Further on, under head of "Plan of the 
work," he says: " Over and above this peculiar ap- 
paratus for causing miracles to evaporate in 
myths, criticism will avail itself of all means," &c. 
(The italics are not in the original). You see from 
this, that it was not on historical but on anti-super- 
natural grounds that Strauss based his famous myth- 
ical theory. He had to get rid of the miracles so as 
to keep his dogma, and he used the mythical theory as 
the best means of getting rid of them. Kenan, in his 
" Apostles" (Oarleton, K Y. p. 37), says : " The 
first twelve chapters of the Acts are one tissue of 
miracles. Now one absolute rule of criticism, is 
not to allow any place among historical accounts to 
any miraculous stories." Now I ask in all fairness, 
is this criticism, or is it dogmatism? It is true that 
he adds: "nor is this owing to a metaphysical sys- 
tem, for it is simply the dictate of observation." 
Here he falls back on the oft refuted sophism of 
Hume, that miracles are contrary to all expe- 
rience, which is a simple begging of the question, 
for it is the very point at issue. We say, that 
miracles are not contrary to all experience, and we 



THE STRONGHOLD OF UNBELIEF. 181 

point to the experience of Matthew, Mark, Luke, 
John, and others who lived at that time. But 
all this is quietly laid aside. On what grounds ? 
On the grounds of historical criticism ? Not at all. 
But simply by the repetition of the assertion that 
miracles are contrary to all experience. If that is 
not dogmatism, what is it ? 

And as it is with the great leaders of the German 
and French schools of so-called criticism, so has it 
been in England on the part of those who have fol- 
lowed in the wake of their continental leaders. 
Take Baden Powell, who may be considered to have 
struck the first clear note in England on the sub- 
ject. He says, in his essay on the study of the evi- 
dences of Christianity, (" Essays and Reviews," p. 
150): " In an age of physical research like the 
present, all highly cultivated minds and duly ad- 
vanced intellects have imbibed more or less the 
lessons of the inductive philosophy, and have, at 
least in some measure, learned to appreciate the 
grand foundation conception of universal law — to 
recognize the impossibility ... of any mod- 
ification whatsoever in the existing conditions of 
material agents, unless through the invariable 
operation of a series of eternally-impressed conse- 
quences, following in some necessary chain of 
orderly connection, however imperfectly known to 



182 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

us. So clear and indisputable indeed lias this great 
truth become, so deeply seated has it been now ad- 
mitted to be in the essential nature of sensible 
things and of the external world, that all philo- 
sophical inquirers adopt it as a primary principle 
and guiding maxim of all their researches." There 
it is, you see, quite honestly expressed: they all 
"adopt it as a primary principle and guiding 
maxim of all their researches;" so that, as a matter 
of course, every one can predict beforehand what 
the result of these researches must be. The 
primary principle and guiding maxim of all their 
researches is that the thing they are investigating 
can not be true. Any clear-headed man can esti- 
mate the value of these researches, so far as the main 
point at issue is concerned. Only it is hard to avoid 
raising the question : Why any researches at all, 
since the very point in dispute is settled before the 
researches are begun? But this would be scarcely 
a fair way of putting it, for these men really are not 
investigating whether Evangelical Christianity be 
true or false. They have decided its falsehood be- 
fore they began; and the real object of their re- 
searches is simply to determine which of the many 
hypotheses of falsehood will be least at variance 
with those facts, which can not be got rid of by any 
method of " elimination," however ingenious. It 



THE STKONGHOLD OF UNBELIEF. 183 

would be a great mistake, for instance, to suppose 
that when such men as Strauss and Paulus are ar- 
rayed against each other, the one is arguing for the 
truth and the other for the falsehood of evangelical 
Christianity. Both the one and the other has de- 
cided its falsehood before he began his researches; 
and the only dispute between them is as to what 
theory of falsehood will appear the more plausible. 
These remarks will not apply, however, to such a 
book as " Supernatural Religion," which does ad- 
dress itself apparently with great thoroughness to 
the question of truth or falsehood; but it is a sig- 
nificant fact that though historical investigation 
fills a large part of the work, it is not entered upon 
until many pages have been devoted to building 
up the strongest prejudice against the entertaining 
of the idea of the supernatural. And thus it will 
be found that, whether it is so expressed or not, the 
real reason for rejecting the facts of the gospel is 
the dogma, that miracles can not be admitted on 
any consideration, however strong the evidence be. 
I say " whether expressed or not," because it is now 
getting to be the fashion to say nothing about it, 
but simply to take it for granted as an axiom that 
no one will ever dream of questioning. This is the 
method adopted in the latest productions of the 
Leyden school of skepticism, which may be con- 



184: THE FOUNDATIONS. 

sidered as the consummation of rationalistic doo-- 
matism, for their new edition of the Bible, pre- 
pared for young people, who above all others ought 
not to be so imposed upon, does not even suggest 
the idea that there is any question on the sub- 
ject, but throughout speaks of the legends and 
falsehoods of every part of the Bible, from Genesis 
to Revelation, just as if there were no longer any 
who believed even so well-attested a fact as the 
Resurrection of the Lord ! 

It may be of service to give a single illustration 
of the "way in which the dogma controls the re- 
searches. Take, for instance, the question as to the 
date of Luke's gospel. Alford examines the ques- 
tion (and every one who is acquainted with his works 
knows how painstaking he is and how scrupulously 
honest in putting things in the worst light for his 
own cause), and decides " A. D. 50-58 as the limits 
within which it was probable that the gospel was 
published." He examines the question separately 
as to the date of the Acts, and decides for A. D. 63. 
Renan, on the other hand, fixes the date of the Acts 
about 71 or 72. On what ground? Because it was 
evidently written after Luke, and Luke must have 
been written after A. D. 70. But why must Luke 
have been written after 70? Because it contains a 
prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem, and 



THE STRONGHOLD OF UNBELIEF. 185 

therefore mast have been written after the event ! 
The reason of the difference between Alford and 
Renan is very apparent. Alford examines on his- 
torical grounds. Renan lias a dogma which he 
must maintain at all hazards. If a genuine 
prophecy were admitted, it would overthrow his 
dogma, and accordingly, to save his dogma, he 
sacrifices everything that stands in his way. He 
has adopted the impossibility of anything super- 
human, either in knowledge or power, as "the 
primary principle and guiding maxim of all his re- 
searches," and as a matter of course he reaches his 
foregone conclusion. This illustration of the way 
in which prophecy is dealt with, together with those 
which have been given from Strauss and others, of 
the way in which miracles are dealt with, will serve 
to show what is the real worth of all this manipu- 
lation which goes by the name of " the higher 
criticism." Its strength is found in the dogmatic 
assertion that nothing can by any means be credited 
which demands superhuman power or knowledge to 
account for it. 

We are willing to submit everything to criticism. 
There have been those who have planted themselves 
on the dogma of inspiration, and refused to listen to 
any critical examination of its foundations; but the 
number has been small at all times among intelligent 



186 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

Christians, and is smaller still than ever. We open 
up everything to criticism, because we have nothing 
to conceal. But our opponents, while professing to 
be the advocates of universal criticism, nevertheless 
refuse to subject to the criticism of reason that 
dogma on which their whole system rests. They 
disallow entirely the critical question, " Why should 
it be thought a thing incredible that God should 
raise the dead?" They plant themselves on a 
dogma, which begs the whole question at issue, and 
then, following it as a guiding maxim, go on with 
their " researches." And herein there is furnished 
a quite sufficient reason why, with all their learning, 
and all their ability, and even all their candor, they 
can not accept the evidences of Christianity. If 
once they would surrender their dogma, and listen 
to the facts and arguments without being controlled 
by it, they w r ould no doubt feel the force of them, 
as other candid and intelligent men do, who are free 
from bondage. But, being bound hand and foot 
with the inexorable necessity of eliminating the 
supernatural, they are compelled to choose among 
the various forms of unbelief. 

The truth is that skeptical theology is always 
ruled by skeptical philosophy. It was the Panthe- 
istic philosophy which ruled the speculations of the 
great German infidels of the last generation; it is 



THE STRONGHOLD OF UNBELIEF. 187 

the philosophy of naturalistic evolution which rules 
the speculations of Kuenen and his followers to-day; 
and, so long as men will bind themselves over to 
be the uncompromising advocates of any human 
philosophy, it is not to be expected that they will 
be in an attitude of mind for receiving at all favor- 
ably u the truth as it is in Jesus," in its simplicity, 
purity and beauty. We have much sympathy with 
those who stumble at the hard doctrines and meta- 
physical subtleties which have been often advanced 
in the name of Christianity; but we have none 
whatever with those who, because they are ordered 
to do so by a ready-made physical or metaphysical 
system, take the position that no amount of evi- 
dence can prove that such an one as Jesus of Naz- 
areth did anything beyond the power of ordinary 
humanity. We feel sure that the progress of en- 
lightenment will, in due time, sweep away this 
shallow dogmatism from the face of the earth. 

The trouble with the skepticism of the age is 
that it is not thorough enough. It questions ev- 
erything but its own foundations. If it would only 
question these, the result would appear, and we have 
no doubt the day is at hand when it will be clearly 
shown, that there is no logical halting place between 
absolute atheism on the one hand, and the belief in 
Christ and the great facts and truths of Christianity 



188 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

on the other. And, as soon as this issue is fairly 
joined, we have no fear of the outcome, for the sim- 
ple reason that we have too much faith in human- 
ity, to estimate at any large aggregate the number 
of the fools who will be content to say, even in 
their hearts, " There is no God." "When people gen- 
erally discover, as sooner or later they are sure to 
do, that to give up the possibility of the manifesta- 
tion of Divine agency in the universe, is to give up 
the idea of a Father in Heaven, all that remains in 
them of goodness, and nobility, and hopefulness as 
well, will rise up in indignation, and scatter to the 
winds both the physical and the metaphysical dog- 
mas on which alone atheism can rest for support. 



LECTURE XII. 

THE STRONGHOLD OF FAITH. 

" Their rock is not as our Hock, even our ene- 
mies themselves being judges." This will be clear- 
ly seen when we pass from the stronghold of un- 
belief to the stronghold of faith. "We have seen 
that the stronghold of the unbelief of the time is a 
dogma, while, as will presently appear, the Christian 
stronghold is in facts. Unbelievers, it is true, deal 
largely in facts, but when you trace their arguments 
to their ultimate foundation you find dogma at the 
bottom. On the other hand, while we admit that 
Christians deal largely in dogmas, it is found that 
when you trace these dogmas to their ultimate 
foundation, you strike the bed-rock of hard facts 
that can not be denied. For example, inspiration 
is a dogma; and if we rested everything on inspira- 
tion, our position w T ould be no better than that of 
the infidel, who rests everything on the dogmatic 
assertion, that there can be no power above nature 
which cnn by any possibility be made known to 

(189) 



190 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

man. But we do not rest upon the dogma of in- 
spiration as our foundation, nor upon any dogma 
whatever, but upon the Christ of history, a person 
whose existence and work, and superiority of char- 
acter, and commanding influence in the world's 
history no one can deny. And herein we follow 
Christ Himself, who said, in words which would 
have been ridiculous from the lips of any other man 
that ever lived upon the earth, " I am the truth. n 
Confucius, Zoroaster, Plato, might, without the im- 
putation of being fantastic or fanatical, have said, 
" I teach the truth," but only One could say, with- 
out stultifying Himself by the utterance, "I am 
the truth." 

The vast accumulation of evidence for Christ- 
ian belief has, to a large extent, hindered even 
Christians themselves from recognizing where their 
greatest strength lies. Inasmuch as nine-tenths of 
all the attacks that are made on Christianity are 
attacks on the Bible, the attention of Christian 
apologists has been almost exclusively directed to 
its defense. And their success has been so great, 
that comparatively few have felt it necessary to go 
back of it. The Bible is such a wonderful book 
that, even if we could give it no place in history at 
all, it would commend itself to the careful consid- 
eration of every thoughtful man. Even though it 



THE STRONGHOLD OF FAITH. 191 

set up no claim to inspiration, and could show as 
little connection with any remarkable name in his- 
tory as the Book of Mormon can, it would be hard 
to explain it without some superhuman theory of 
its origin. If the defense of the Bible, as a whole, 
against infidel attacks had been more difficult or 
less successful than it has been, there would have 
been greater disposition to fall back on the founda- 
tions on which the Bible itself rests. Now it is 
true that, so far as internal evidence is concerned, 
the position of the defenders of the Scriptures is 
stronger than ever. The objections against partic- 
ular passages are for the most part the old ob- 
jections that have done duty in every generation 
from the beginning till now, while deeper and more 
comprehensive study has brought out new beauties 
and glories, new adaptations and correspondencies. 
But inasmuch as the inspiration of the Scriptures 
is now called in question even by those who admit 
the wonderful adaptation of the Bible to the spirit- 
ual wants of man, it is necessary, especially in 
these days, to make it evident that while we hold 
as strongly as ever that the Bible is its own wit- 
ness, we decline to admit that it is its only witness; 
we maintain that, if the witness of the Bible to 
itself is challenged, we can fall back upon a Wit- 
ness nobler still — One who stands acknowledged, 



192 THE FOUNDATIONS. 



even by the enemies of the Bible, as the culmination 
of earth's greatness, goodness, and nobility. 

There is evidence to show that some even of the 
acutest and most learned of the opponents of Christ- 
ianity have not really estimated the true strength 
of our position. Take the following passage from 
the introductory chapter of " Supernatural Relig- 
ion" as an illustration; " Orthodox Christians at 
the present day may be divided into two broad 
classes, one of which professes to base the Church 
upon the Bible, and the other the Bible upon the 
Church. The one party assert that the Bible is fully 
and absolutely inspired; that it contains God's rev- 
elation to man, and that it is the only and sufficient 
ground for all religious belief." Now this is an 
entire misunderstanding and misrepresentation of 
our position. It is a confounding of the question 
as to the limits of inspiration with the question as 
to the grounds of inspiration. We are all familiar 
with the standing controversy as to whether the 
Church rests on the Bible or the Bible on the 
Church. The latter is the Boman Catholic view, 
while the Protestant theologians have taken the 
position that the Church derives her authority from 
the Bible, not the Bible from the Church. Hence 
the famous watchword (originated by Chilling- 
worth, I believe), " The Bible and the Bible alone, 



THE STKONGHOLD OF FAITH. 193 

the religion of Protestants." ~Now we are quite 
willing to stand by the motto, "The Bible and 
the Bible alone," when the question is as to the 
limits of that which is authoritative, when the con- 
troversy is with those who wish to impose decrees 
of councils and ecclesiastical dogmas and traditions 
as of equal authority with the Holy Scriptures; but 
it is quite a different thing, when the question is as 
to the foundation of our faith, and the controversy 
is with those who would take it away from us alto- 
gether. We do say that the Church rests upon the 
Bible, but we utterly deny that " the Bible is the 
only ground for all religious belief." We do say 
that " we (the church) are built upon the founda- 
tion of the apostles and prophets" (the Bible); but 
we do not stop there. With the apostle we go on 
and say, "Jesus Christ Himself being the chief 
corner-stone." And it is satisfactory to know that, 
while " the foundation of the apostles and prophets" 
is so strong that it has resisted all attempts to un- 
dermine it for more than seventeen centuries, the 
corner-stone is so immovable that it not only stands 
secure in the estimation of all the friends of Christ- 
ianity, but " even our enemies themselves being 
judges." There never was or well could be a more 
uncompromising opponent of Christianity than 
John Stuart Mill, and yet he must (p. 254) " place 
13 



194 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

the Prophet of Nazareth, even in the estimation of 
those who have no belief in his inspiration, in the 
very first rank of the men of sublime genius of 
whom our species can boast;' 5 and further on he 
says " that to the conception of the rational skeptic 
it remains a possibility, that Christ actually was 
what He supposed Himself to be," that He was " a 
man charged with a special, express, and unique 
commission from God to lead mankind to truth and 
virtue. 55 You may think it strange that any one 
who would go so far should refuse or hesitate to 
go further; but there is always some reason which, 
if we only knew it, would explain all; and in this 
case there happens to be something in the very 
same paragraph which is sufficient to explain it. 
He has occasion to refer to the gospel of John, which 
he does in terms implying the greatest contempt; 
and he actually says, in regard to those lovely fare- 
well w r ords at the last supper, recorded in the four- 
teenth and following chapters, and finishing with 
the intercessory prayer — words which have charmed 
the hearts of spiritual men in all ages beyond any- 
thing else that was ever written or read: "The 
east was full of men who could have stolen any 
quantity of this poor stuff ! 55 IVhat more conclu- 
sive proof could be had, that the great logician had 
starved his spiritual nature to death? And it only 



THE STRONGHOLD OF FAITH. 195 

shows how strong " our Rock" is, that a man with 
so little power to appreciate spiritual things as this 
would indicate, should feel constrained to speak in 
such exalted terms as he elsewhere uses in regard to 
Him in w T hom our confidence is ultimately placed. 

"Even our enemies themselves being judges." 
I believe it would be very easy, by gathering to- 
gether the concessions made by the great leaders 
of the opposition to supernatural Christianity, to 
rear the entire structure which they are trying to 
demolish. It has been often shown, how those dis- 
cussing the subject from different points of view, 
use arguments which are mutually destructive; and 
thus the enemies of the truth devour one another, 
and leave the Christ of history standing in the 
midst; and we can well imagine Him there, looking 
down with ineffable tenderness and compassion on 
the scene, while from time to time those loving 
eyes of His are lifted up, as the earnest prayer ascends 
to heaven, " Father, forgive them, for they know not 
what they do." But it would be interesting to show, 
not only how by their hostile arguments they 
destroy one another, but how by their various con- 
cessions they grant all that is needed for a solid 
foundation of faith. 

If, as we have seen, one uncompromising op- 
ponent of Christianity speaks of the gospel of John 



196 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

as " poor stuff,'' which, could be stolen by the 
bushel, another, who as stoutly denies the authen- 
ticity of that gospel and the credibility of its author, 
is yet constrained to write in this way about him 
and it : u The disciple whom Jesus loved has reached 
a point of development which not only stands out 
from that of the old Catholic church as the ideal 
over against a miserablv defective realitv. but also 
far transcends anything which the Christianity of 
to-day, as a whole, has as yet attained to; and 
within the Xew Testament the fourth gospel must 
be regarded as the ripest and fairest fruit of the 
spirit of Jesus." (Bible for Learners, p. 692.) And 
if you ask how a man, who can speak in such lofty 
terms of the fourth gospel, can nevertheless believe 
that in substance it is false from beo-innino; to end, 
we can only remind you that he is one of those who 
has adopted the anti-supernatural dogma as " a pri- 
mary principle and guiding maxim of all his re- 
searches," so that he is obliged to discredit its truth 
while he cannot deny its beauty, or shut his eyes to 
its superlative excellence and elevation. So much 
for the theologian, who has some spiritual insight, 
but is entirely astray on account of the lad logic of 
his guiding maxim. 

On the other hand, the great logician who, be- 
cause he is wanting in spiritual insight, calls the 



THE STRONGHOLD OF FAITH. 197 

gospel " poor stuff," yet cannot but admit that the 
guiding maxim of the other is illogical, for he says 
(in his essay on Theism): " Once admit a God, and 
the production by His direct volition of an effect, 
which in any case owed its origin to His creative 
will, is no longer a purely arbitrary hypothesis to 
account for the fact, but must be reckoned with as a 
serious possibility." Now, if only Dr. Hooykaas 
had logic enough to see the force of what Mill says 
about the supernatural, his difficulties about the 
credibility of the gospels would disappear. On the 
other hand, if Mill had had the spiritual insight of 
Dr. Hooykaas, he could not have rested in the con- 
ception of the mere possibility of Christ being a 
man charged with a special, express, and unique 
commission from God. Thus the logic of the 
strong logician is on our side, and the spiritual in- 
sight of the skeptical theologian is on our side; and 
all that infidelity really has to build upon, so far as 
these two representative men are concerned, is the 
weak spirituality of the logician and the weak logic 
of the theologian. And so I believe it would be 
found, if we were to make a diligent and thorough 
search all through the ranks of the opponents of the 
gospel. With the concessions of the strong scien- 
tific men, the strong historians, the strong literary 
critics, the strong logicians, of the opposition, we 



198 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

could construct a sufficient foundation for evangeli- 
cal Christianity, and crown it with, this motto: 
u Our Eock is no: as their rock, even our enemies 
themselves being judges." 

TThen Christ is presented as the truth, it is very 
hard to gainsay or resist And it is important to 
remember that, all through the Xew Testament, it 
is :~_r personal historic Christ who is presented as 
the object of faith. It is u believe on the Lord 
Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved. 4 ' It is true 
that faith in Christ, if it Kg genuine, will lead to 
belief of the Bible; but in many sases a very great 
deal depends on what is presented first. A very in- 
telligent man of my acquaintance lately expressed 
his shrinking from Christianity by saying: u You 
would make me begin at the first : Qenesis and 
: it right straight through/' Now this is not 
the position of evangelical Christianity. It is the 
gt spel that we insist upon, the gospel of Jesus the 
Lst And many a man that stumbles at many 
hard things in the Bible would find no excuse for 
ting Christ and His gospel. The simplicity 
;: the troth as it is in Jesus will commend itself 
more or less to all honest and earnest minds. And 
then there is not wily the simplicity bnt the rital- 
f the faith which attaches itself to the person 
jf Jesus, and which therefore ahowfi itself to be not 



THE STRONGHOLD OF FAITH. 199 

a matter of creed, but of life. Many men shrink 
from systems ready-made. Our systems of theology 
may be able to make a very good defense of them- 
selves, and it would be easy to show that many of 
those who are the most bitter against systems of 
theology have yielded a blind allegfance to ready- 
made systems of philosophy. But it is important 
to know that we are under no obligation, in dealing 
with the foundations, to defend any system of the- 
ology. The faith which is necessary to begin with 
in every case is simple confidence in Christ. It may 
begin with an idea no higher than Mill's, of Christ 
as "a man charged with a special, express, and 
unique commission irom God." It seems very evi- 
dent that the first disciples commenced with no high- 
er idea of Him than this. Even Peter, James and 
John, were no further on, when tbey began their 
Christian career. And if the beginner in the Chris- 
tian life now will only follow in the footsteps of the 
man Christ Jesus, and honestly try to profit by His 
instructions, and keep His words as these disciples 
did, the result will be the same. In due time, to the 
question, " Whom say ye that I am?" will come the 
unhesitating answer, " Thou art the Christ, the Son 
of the living God." We have such confidence in 
" our Rock," that we have no fear for any that will 
only surrender themselves to His guidance. Just 



200 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

as He is able and willing to pardon and restore the 
greatest sinner who will only truly repent, so is He 
able and willing to guide into all truth those who 
are farthest astray in their conceptions of divine 
things, if only they are willing to be led by Him. 
Let any man, whatever his preconceived opinions 
be, only take up the yoke of the Christ of the gos- 
pels and learn of Him; let him take these words 
and that example of His and live by them day by day, 
and in due time he will be as orthodox as he need 
be on the Bible question, on all questions of theol- 
ogy, on everything that is of any consequence. 
"If any man will do His will, he shall know of the 
doctrine." 

In concluding these lectures I shall only throw 
out a suggestion, on which a volume might profit- 
ably be written. We referred in the introductory 
lecture to the cumulative nature of the Christian 
evidence, and showed how unfair it was to repre- 
sent its strength as that of a chain which is no strong- 
er than its weakest link. ]STow that we have been 
speaking of the stronghold of Christianity, it is im- 
portant to remind you that the strength of our po- 
sition is not even measured by the strength of our 
strongest argument. Strong as our position is 
when we plant our feet simply on the " Rock of 
Ages," and take our stand upon the unquestionable 



■t** 



THE STRONGHOLD OF FAITH. 201 

facts of the life of the Christ of history, it is yet 
very much strengthened by the convergence of evi- 
dence from every other point to the central Rock 
on which our feet are planted ; and the special sug- 
gestion we have to throw out is, the remarkable 
contrast between the infidel rock and the Christian 
rock, as regards their relation to all the outlying 
field. The conception of Christ as a divine Savior 
adapts itself to all the facts and phenomena as they 
are presented to us in history and experience. The 
anti-supernatural dogma of the opposition is so ill 
adapted to any of them, that the only way in which 
it can be maintained is by the "reconstruction" of 
everything. The Christ of the gospels does not 
suit it, and so there must be a reconstruction of the 
life of Christ to match, and we are asked to take the 
Christ of Strauss', or Renan's, or Keim's imagining, 
instead of the Christ of history. The Bible does not 
suit it in any part, and so it must all be reconstructed, 
from Moses up to John; and so imperative has the 
necessity become, that we have, as the latest pro- 
duction of the infidel school, a bible according to 
Oort and Hooykaas, assisted by Kuenen, to take the 
place of the old Bible of history. And in the same 
way Baur and others have been laboring to recon- 
struct the history of the church. And even that is 
not sufficient, for the very universe itself is found to 



202 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

be in need of reconstruction, to harmonize with the 
anti-supernatural dogma, and, accordingly, not only 
are evil spirits and angels ruled out of existence, 
but even God Himself is banished from His uni- 
verse; and not only so, but the spiritual nature of 
man is resolved into mere vibrations of the brain 
and nervous system. And the reconstruction pro- 
cess does not stop even here; for those moral dis- 
tinctions which were supposed to lie in the nature 
of things are included in the all embracing mater- 
ial development, and we must have new " Data of 
Ethics" from the fertile brain of Herbert Spencer 
to take the place of the discarded Law of God; 
and thus everything, everything is reconstructed on 
the basis of the barest materialism. Now, does not 
the necessity for such wholesale reconstruction of 
everything render that dogma of the infidel, which 
calls for it all, just a little suspicious? 

On the other hand, take the Christian conception. 
It harmonizes, as we have seen, with our own human 
nature in all its complexity; it harmonizes with 
those thoughts of God which the best of men have 
had in all ages; it harmonizes with what we cannot 
but believe as to the immovable foundations of 
right and wrong; it harmonizes with the gospels as 
we find them, without any manipulation like that 
which is resorted to by our imaginative x % econstrifct- 



THE STRONGHOLD OF FAITH. 203 

ors ; it harmonizes with the Bible as it has come down 
to us from the past; it harmonizes with the great 
facts of the history of Christianity in the world; 
it harmonizes with individual Christian experience; 
it harmonizes with those hopes and aspirations of 
which the best of men are conscious in their best 
and purest moments. And is not all this a mighty 
confirmation of its truth? Let us then by all means 
cast aside that miserable dogma, which begins by 
"eliminating" the superhuman element from the 
Life of Jesus, and ends by destroying the very 
foundations of morality ; and, with our feet securely 
planted on the "Kock of Ages," let us still raise to 
highest heaven the song: 

" All hail the power of Jesus' name, 
Let angels prostrate fall, 
Bring forth the royal diadem 
And crown Him Lord of all." 

In the book of Isaiah (xxviii, 16.) we find this re- 
markable prophecy: "Thus saith the Lord God, 
Behold, I lay in Zion, for a foundation, a stone, a 
tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure founda- 
tion: he that believeth shall not make haste." This 
prophecy is quoted by the apostle Peter in his epis- 
tle, and applied to Christ in these terms: " To 
whom coming, as unto a Living Stone, disallowed 
indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, ye 



201 THE FOUNDATIONS. 

also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house." 
In the focus between these two lights, the one cast- 
ing its rays forward and the other backward on the 
spot, lies the much controverted passage, which 
records the answer of the Master to this same apos- 
tle, immediately after he has for the first time ex- 
pressed his faith in Him as "the Christ, the Son 
of the Living God ": " Thou art Peter, and upon 
this rock I will build my Church: apd the gates 
of hell shall not prevail against it", (Matt, xvi, 16). 
This is the Christian stronghold ; and it is the only 
Stronghold for Eternity. " Other foundation can 
no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Cheist." 



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Ingersoll and Moses : a reply. 

By Rev. Samuel Ives Curtiss, D. D., author of " The 
Levitical Priests," etc. 12mo. Price, $1.25. 

"There is nothing dogmatical or violent in the style of this reply. 
It is calm, dignified, scholarly and fair throughout."- The Tribune. 

« Dr Curtiss has done his work well, and has shown his opponent to 
be equally destitute of scholarship and fairness."- Gazette, Cincinnati. 

-The author has done very thorough work, and no fair minded 
reader, even if opposed to Christianity, can deny its candor, accuracy 
or completeness."— Congregationalist, Boston. 

" Prof Curtiss, of Chicago Theological Seminary, with his superb 
stores of learning, has lately subjected himself, by answering Ingersoll 
to the charge of using howitzers to shoot sparrows. He has shown most 
conclusively, what no man of even moderate intelligence has ever 
doubted, that this man is a blunderer of the most irredeemable kind, 
not advanced beyond poor outgrown Paine in his knowledge of the 
methods by which Christianity can be attacked .»-£«;. Joseph Cook, 

Boston. ' _ 

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Motives of Life : bt prof, david swing. 

Author of " Truths for To-day.'' 16mo. Price, $1.00. 

« Remarkable for its simplicity, eloquence, earnest thoughts and sin- 
cere pleadings for what is good and be*t in life "-JBte. Post, Hartford. 

» Prof Swing writes with the simplicity, the earnestness and the 
honesty which come of a sincere devotion to all that is best and noblest 
and purest in life and character."-^. Y. Evening Post. 

« One of the mpst remarkable features of Mr. Swing's writings is the 
felicity and strength of their illustrations. He never loses himself m a 
cloud of abstractions. The truth which he presents is always surcharged 
with freshness and vitality, radiant with color and active in move- 
ment."— N. Y. Tribune. 

"They are distinguished for breadth of thought, simplicity of struc- 
ture, earnestness of aim, fitness of illustration, and lofty views of human 
character and duty. It is difficult to find about them the slightest tech- 
nical theological odor, but they have a fragrance of their own which is 
much more grateful."- Golden Rule, Boston. 

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Life of Benedict Arnold : his patriotism and his 

Treason. By Hon. I. N. Arnold, author of " Life of 
Abraham Lincoln. " Crown 8vo., gilt top. Price, $2. 50. 

" The author has made a diligent study of his sources of information, 
compared their evidence with impartiality and good judgment, and pre- 
sented the iruits of his research in a compact and attractive narrative.'' 
—Tribune, New York. 

"The volume has been completed with an accuracy, a candor, and 
a thoroughness worthy of the true science of history, and the publish- 
ers have done their part of the work superbly. A handsomer volume 
has never been issued in the United States."— Times, Chicago. 

" The biographer discriminates fairly between Arnold's patriotism 
and baseness; and while exhibiting the former and the splendid ser- 
vices by which it was illustrated, with generous earnestness, does not in 
any degree extenuate the turpitude of the other. * * * The investi- 
gation is not confined to familiar documentary evidence, but is assisted 
by new and important supplementary material derived from manu- 
scripts, letters, journals, etc., not generally accessible."— Harper's Monthly. 

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Belle and the BoyS: By Mrs. Caroline F. Corbin. 

Author of " Rebecca; or A Woman's Secret." 12 
mo. Illustrated. Price, $1.25. 

" This book places its author at once among the ' gifted few.' "Sat. 
Eve. Herald. 

11 To the list of good domestic stories must be added 'Belle and the 
Boys.' "—Atlantic Monthly. 

11 It seems just the book to be appreciated by fa ; r, sweet young gitfs, 
and b.ave, manly boys. Handsomely printed and illustrated, it is one 
of the prettiest juvenile books of the year."— American Bookseller, N. Y. 

" In that simplicity of style and story-telling knack which goes di- 
rectly to the heart of every boy and girl, she has much of that power 
possessed in so remarkable a degree by Miss Alcott, with whose stories 
Mrs, Corbin's creations may be not improperly compared. It is thor- 
oughly bright and attractive, and, with its pretty cover and handsome 
illustra 1 ions, will make glad the hearts of many a boy and girl."— Tri- 
bune, Chicago. 

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Truths for To-Day. by prof, david swing. 

First Series (Fifteen Selected Sermons), Price, $1.50. 
Second Series (Fifteen Selected Sermons), Price, 1.50. 

" Fresh and manly, full of generous Christian feeling, and without 
a taint of heresy. * * * Prof. Swing is not a logician, and he relies 
on heart and experience rather than on argument as means of conver- 
sion ; but he is wholly free from sentimentality ; his religion is healthy 
and vigorous, and a reader of his sermons can readily understand why 
he is an effective and persuasive preacher."— Advertiser, Boston. 

" The preacher makes no display of his rich resources, but you are 
convinced that you are listening to a man of earnest thought, of rare 
culture, and of genuine humanity. His forte is evidently not that of 
doctrinal discussion. He deals in no nice distinctions of creed. He 
has no taste for hair-splitting subtleties, but presents a broad and gen- 
erous view of human duty, appealing to the highest instincts and the 
purest motives of a lofty manhood."— New York Tribune. 

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A Short History of France ; for young people. 

By Miss Kirkland, author of " Six Little Cooks,' ' 
and " Dora's Housekeeping." 12mo. Price, $1. 50. 

11 The little history may be commended as the best of its kind^that 
has yet appeared."— Bulletin, Philadelphia. 

" It is not a dry compendium of dates and facts, but a ch armingly 
written history."— Christian Union, New York. 

"Miss Kirkland has composed her 'Short History of France' in 
the way in which a history for young people ought to be written ; that 
, is, she has aimed to present a consecutive and agreeable story, from 
which the reader can not only learn the names of kings, and the suc- 
cession of events, but can also receive a vivid and permanent impres- 
sion as to characters, modes of life, and the spirit of different periods. 
The author has that rare quality among writers of history, knowing 
what to omit ; and appreciates to the full that fundamental rule for a 
writer of children's histories— never to give a proper name or a date in 
the narrative which is not indispensable. The book is therefore 
admirably adapted to its purpose."— Nation, New York. 

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Memories, by max mulleb. 

Translated from the German of Max Miiller, by 
G.P.Upton. Small quarto. Full gilt. Price, $1.50. 

" • Memories' is one of the prettiest and worthiest books of the year. 
The story is full of that indescribable half naturalness, that effortless 
vraisemblance, which is so commonly a charm of German writers, and so 
seldom paralleled in English. * * * Scarcely could there be drawn 
a more lovely figure than that of the invalid Princess, though it is so 
nearly pure spirit that earthly touch seems almost to profane her." — 
Springfield {Mass. ) Republican. 

" It can hardly be ranked with works of fiction; it does not even 
come under the category of novellettes, for it is only a pathetic little 
story ; but it is more than this— it is a prose poem. * * It is seldom 
that a powerful intellect produces any work, however small, that does 
not bear some marks of its special bent, and the traces of research and 
philosophy in this little story are apparent, while its beauty and 
pathos show us a fresh phase of a many-sided mind, to which we 
already owe large debts of gratitude."— The Academy, London. 
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Metric By Alex. Pushkin. 

Translated from the Russian of Alex. Pushkin, by M. 
de Zielinska. Small quarto. Full gilt. Price, $1.50. 

"It is one of the purest, sweetest little narratives that we have read 
for a long time. It is a little classic, and a Russian classic, too. We 
catch the very breezes of the Steppes, and meet, face to face, the high- 
souled, simple-minded Russian."— Gazette, Cincinnati. 

" Pushkin, the most eminent of Russian poets and novelists, is a 
writer little known in translations. He is delightfully introduced to 
the American public by his tale of 'Marie.' The whole spirit and 
atmosphere of the story is fresh and bracing, and we promise the 
readers of the book a new treat."— New York Independent. 

"An unadorned record, told in the most charming way, of the ad- 
ventures of a young Russian officer, who sees service against some 
rebels, and whose betrothal to the heroine forms the romantic part of 
the story. There is plenty of incident, and the narration is so direct 
and simple that the reader becomes at once conscious of a master's 
hand." — Tlie Nation, New York. 

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Madeleine, by Jules sandbar 

(Crowned by the French Academy.) Translated from 
the French of Jules Sandeau, by Francis Chariot. 
Small quarto. Full gilt. Price, $1.50. 

" It is one of the most exquisite love tales that ever was written, 
abounding in gentle pathos and sparkling wit, and so pure in its senti- 
ment that it may be read by a child."— Evening Mail, New York. 

" Few of the numerous translations from the French which have 
recently been given to the public will suit the American taste as well 
as " Madeleine,' or be perused with the same unflagging interest."— Trav- 
eller, Boston. 

" More than thirty years ago it received the honor of a prize from 
the French Academy, and has since almost become a French classic. 
It abounds both in pathos and wit. Above all, it is a pure story, dealing 
withdove of the most exalted kind. It is indeed a wonder that a tale 
so fresh, so sweet, so pure as this, has not sooner been introduced to 
the English-speaking public."— Evening Telegram, New York. 

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(iFclZiellcL By A. de Lamailtine. 

Translated from the French ©f A. de Lamartine, by 
J. B. Runnion. Small quarto. Full gilt. Price, $1.50. 

" It is full of beautiful sentiment, unique and graceful in style, of 
course, as were all the writings that left the hands of this distinguished 
French author."— Post, Boston, 

" The beauty and purity of the story have made it a classic in the 
French language. In its English dress, it has lost nothing of the rare 
elegance and felicity of expression which mark Lamartine's style."— 
Publishers' Weekly, New York. 

"'Graziella' is a poem in prose. The subject and the treatment 
are both eminently poetic. * * * It glows with love of the beauti- 
ful in all nature. * * * It is pure literature, a perfect story, couched 
in perfect words. The sentences have the rhythm and flow, the sweet- 
ness and tender fancy of the original. It is uniform with ' Memories,' 
and it should stand side by si<de with that on the shelves of every lover 
of pure, strong thoughts, put in pure, strong words. 'Graziella' is a 
book to be loved." — Chicago Tribune. 

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Tales of Ancient Greece. 

By the Rev. Sir, G. W. Cox, Bart., M. A., Trinity 
College, Oxford. 12mo. Price, $ 1.60. 

" It ought to be in the hands of every scholar and of every school- 
boy." — Saturday Review, London. 

" It is only when we take up such a book as this that we realize how 
rich in interest is the mythology of Greece."— Inquirer, Philadelphia. 

" Admirable in style, and level with a child's comprehension. 
These versions might well find a place in every family ."—The Nation. 
New York. 

" In Mr. Cox will be found yet another name to be enrolled among 
those English writers who have vindicated for this country an honora- 
abe rank in the investigation of Greek history."— Edinburgh Review. 

" It is doubtful if these tales, antedating history in their origin, 
and yet fresh with all the charms of youth to all who read them for the 
first time, were ever before presented in so chaste and popular form." — 
Golden RiUe, Boston. 
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How She Came Into Her Kingdom. 

A Romance. By Mrs. Charlotte M. Clark. 12mo. 
Price, $1.50. 

"The book reveals a fertile imagination, superior dramatic power, 
keenness of thoughts n moralizing, and specimens of description such 
as bear the stamp of genius. It is not too much to say that there are pas- 
sages which would do credit to the pen of George Eliot or Charlotte 
Bronte."— Morning Star, Boston. 

" A novel of remarkable intensity and originality. For wierdness 
and mysticism it can be eompared only with the works of Bulwer or 
Hawthorne, while its wonderful descriptions of nature's convulsions 
resemble those of Jules Verne. The story itself is deeply interesting, 
and the development of the incidents of the plot, so full of unlooked- 
for variety, that no definite idea of the whole can be obtained except 
by full perusal. * * * It is a long time since we have read a story 
bo absorbing and powerful."— American Bookseller, New York. 
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SIX LlttlO t/OOKS J or, Aunt Jane's Cooking Class. 

By Miss E. S. Kirkland, author of " A Short History 
of France" etc., etc. 12mo. Price, $1.00. 

" While it is really an interesting narrative in itself, it delightfully 
teaches girls just how to follow practically its many recipes."— tit. Nicho- 
las, New York. 

"This book is the result of a happy thought. * * A lucky 
stroke of genius, because it is a good thing well done. It has the charm 
of a bright story of real life, and is a useful essay on the art of cooking." 
Times, New York . 

" It is one of the nicest possible little books for young people. It is 
filled with capital recipes, strung together in the most charming way, 
and so simple that almost any child could use them. * * To all 
ladies who have children, and to many who have none, we commend 
' Six Little Cooks • with the greatest confidence."— Living Church, Chi- 
cago. 

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Dora's Housekeeping. 

By Miss E. S. Kirkland, author of " A Short His- 
tory of France," etc., etc. 12mo. Price, |1.00. 

" It occupies a hitherto untilled field in literature, and girls and 
their mothers will be equally delighted with it."— The Advance, Chicago. 

"We cordially recommend these two little books (' Dora's House- 
keeping' and 'Six Little Cooks'), as containing the whole gospel of 
domestic economy."— The Nation, Neio York. 

"It is intended for girls in their early teens, and so appetizing are 
the recipes, that they would almost turn an anchorite into a cook. In 
short, one can't look over the book without getting hungry."— Tribune, 
New York. 

"Wise mothers, of that excellent sort who make the household a 
well ordered kingdom, will appreciate the worth of such a story, and 
its fitness for presentation to daughters who are in training, after the 
good old sensible plan, for the proper performance of the daily duties 
of life." — Evening Post, New York. 

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4 

Cumnock's Choice Readings. 

For Public and Private Entertainment. Edited by 
Prof. Robert McLain Cumnock, Northwestern Uni- 
versity. Large 12mo. Price, $1.75. 

"It ought to become a special favorite among school and college 
students and public readers."— Evening Post, New York. 

" Taking into account the admirable type, the excellent taste, the 
brevity of the rhetorical counsels, the unsurpassed variety, we prefer 
Prof. Cumnock's book to every manual of the kind."— Christian Register, 
Boston. 

•'The volume consists in a great measure of fresh specimens that 
have recently found their way into current literature, and present the 
charm of novelty with the merit of good writing. The ancient stream 
is thus enriched with supplies from new fountains, and living produc- 
tions take the place of the veteran pieces which have grown old in the 
course of protracted service." — Tribune, New York. 

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The Primer of Political Economy. 

In sixteen Definitions and forty Propositions. By 
A. B. Mason and J. J. Lalor. 12mo. Cloth. 
Price, 60 cents. 

" ' The Primer' contains what ought to be known in regard to polit- 
ical economy by every school-boy and voter."— The Nation, New York. 

"It treats with clearness wealth, capital, wages, strikes, demand 
and supply, money, credit, tariff and cognate subjects, giv.ng only in 
the briefest form laws and proofs."— Harper's Weekly. 

" We venture to believe that not a quarter of the men in the Lower 
House of Congress know as much about political economy as can be 
learned from this compact and interesting little treatise."— Cliristian 
Register, Boston. 

"We are not acquainted with any work extant that presents these 
principles with the brevity and the clearness of ' The Primer.' * * * 
The authors of this book re-christen their subject the 'fascinating' 
science. Their method makes the name good."— Tribune, Chicago. 

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